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Basically Walmart has had a vendetta against Visa/MC interchange fees (~2%) for years and is now at the point of acting irrationally.[1] They sued them to the t

by abalone 12y ago

Basically Walmart has had a vendetta against Visa/MC interchange fees (~2%) for years and is now at the point of acting irrationally.[1] They sued them to the tune of billions of dollars and of course that didn't kill them. They got the Durbin amendment passed and that didn't kill them. And the reason is simple: Visa/MC actually have consumers allied with them, thanks to things like purchase protections and reward programs. Consumers like paying with their existing Visa/MC cards. So they got a bunch of other big retailers to sign exclusivity agreements to try to force customers to pay by direct checking account withdrawals (ACH), bypassing Visa/MC, in order to get mobile pay functionality. It's silly. They hate Apple Pay because it further entrenches Visa/MC, their nemesis. Much of the criticism around this has focused on privacy and crappy app design, which is fair, but really the main motivation here is to kill Visa/MC. I expect the more rational merchants will adopt Apple Pay once their exclusivity contracts expire. On privacy: CurrentC does collect more customer info than Apple Pay (similar to signing up for a store card), but to be clear, merchants can still track your purchase behavior with Apple Pay. Apple Pay swaps in a device account # for your real account #, and that # can still be used to track your purchases over time. It's primarily a security thing (that # can only be used for TouchID-authorized payments). When Apple talks about privacy it's mainly in comparison to other payment intermediaries (e.g. Google Wallet), i.e. Apple doesn't track your purchases. With respect to merchants, Apple Pay does hide your real name but tracking and those annoying register coupons based on your past activity are still very much possible. And if the merchant ever collected your email at some point, they could associate it with your device account # just the same as your real card #, just like before. This is all a way of saying that MCX's main objective is not to bypass all the privacy protections that Apple Pay is putting in place against merchants, because Apple Pay doesn't really do that (apart from your real name). I'm sure MCX wouldn't mind grabbing more info -- we'd have to scrutinize the privacy policy -- but the main, longstanding, simmering motivation here is to try to kill interchange fees. Unfortunately they are so irrational and short-sighted that they are willing to make life worse for consumers in the process, even though it has no chance of succeeding. [1] "I don’t know that MCX will succeed, and I don’t care. As long as Visa suffers." - alleged Walmart CEO quote as reported by http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/25/currentc/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/10/25/currentc/

MBCook 12y ago
Is the Apple Pay pseudo-card number constant for each device/merchant? I wondered if it changed on a regular basis or per transaction (sort of like one time use card numbers). I don't blame Walmart for wanting an extra 2% profit, I object to having things shoved down my throat. Apple actually improves CCs for the first time in decades and MCX is trying to push a system with less privacy, protections (direct ACH access? Never), and no actual benefit to me. Everything they want to do (for me) they can do with the little barcode loyalty cards or their own app and let me use Apple Pay. Instead they play cartel.
- abalone 12y ago
  Yes it's constant. One # per card-device combo. Of course it also sends a unique cryptogram alongside it with each transaction which is what makes it super secure. Even if the merchant is hacked, the device account # is useless to hackers. But it can be used to track your purchases.
  - tzs 12y ago
    So people trying to minimize tracking should not pay for their prescription drugs with Apple Pay, it sounds like. Only use it to purchase things that cannot inherently be tied to your identity. You can still be tracked from store to store, but they won't know who they tracking (until they start playing with face recognition, or putting a license plate scanner on the drive through, or things like that...).
    - abalone 12y ago
      No. First of all prescriptions are generally always logged under your name even if you pay cash. But more generally Apple Pay is no worse than paying by card, from a privacy standpoint.
- pcurve 12y ago
  I do blame Walmart for wanting that extra 2% profit because they want to have their cake and eat it too. Remember the time when gas stations charged more for credit card transaction? Well no more. Rather than fight the uphill battle, gas stations slowly raised their prices cover credit card transaction fees. Same thing happened with most retailers. Many used to have $20 minimum for CC transaction years ago. That slowly went down to $0 for most places. Now you have people pay for soda with their debit cards. People forget that retailers benefit tremendously from credit cards because studies have shown that people spend substantially more when they charge things on card, versus when they pay cash. Well, now that Walmart business is hurting, they want to squeeze credit card companies. Even if they were able to cut CC companies out, the extra profit would eventually go away through competition.

by abalone 12y ago

MBCook 12y ago

Is the Apple Pay pseudo-card number constant for each device/merchant? I wondered if it changed on a regular basis or per transaction (sort of like one time use card numbers). I don't blame Walmart for wanting an extra 2% profit, I object to having things shoved down my throat. Apple actually improves CCs for the first time in decades and MCX is trying to push a system with less privacy, protections (direct ACH access? Never), and no actual benefit to me. Everything they want to do (for me) they can do with the little barcode loyalty cards or their own app and let me use Apple Pay. Instead they play cartel.

abalone 12y ago
Yes it's constant. One # per card-device combo. Of course it also sends a unique cryptogram alongside it with each transaction which is what makes it super secure. Even if the merchant is hacked, the device account # is useless to hackers. But it can be used to track your purchases.
- tzs 12y ago
  So people trying to minimize tracking should not pay for their prescription drugs with Apple Pay, it sounds like. Only use it to purchase things that cannot inherently be tied to your identity. You can still be tracked from store to store, but they won't know who they tracking (until they start playing with face recognition, or putting a license plate scanner on the drive through, or things like that...).
  - abalone 12y ago
    No. First of all prescriptions are generally always logged under your name even if you pay cash. But more generally Apple Pay is no worse than paying by card, from a privacy standpoint.
pcurve 12y ago
I do blame Walmart for wanting that extra 2% profit because they want to have their cake and eat it too. Remember the time when gas stations charged more for credit card transaction? Well no more. Rather than fight the uphill battle, gas stations slowly raised their prices cover credit card transaction fees. Same thing happened with most retailers. Many used to have $20 minimum for CC transaction years ago. That slowly went down to $0 for most places. Now you have people pay for soda with their debit cards. People forget that retailers benefit tremendously from credit cards because studies have shown that people spend substantially more when they charge things on card, versus when they pay cash. Well, now that Walmart business is hurting, they want to squeeze credit card companies. Even if they were able to cut CC companies out, the extra profit would eventually go away through competition.