Consortium behind Apple Pay competitor CurrentC replaces CEO
Mikey Campbell
The Merchant Customer Exchange, better known by its acronym MCX, announced on Tuesday that it has named payments expert Brian V. Mooney as interim CEO, replacing former chief executive Dekkers Davidson.
According to MCX, Mooney most recently served as CEO and board member of Bank of America Merchant Services.
The executive level shakeup comes as MCX inches closer to throwing its hat into the mobile payments ring with CurrentC, which is planned to go live at major partner retailers including Walmart and The Gap sometime this year. The as-yet-unreleased solution will face stiff competition from the likes of Apple Pay, which has seen decent adoption since its release in October.
MCX made headlines last year when members CVS and Rite Aid switched off Apple Pay compatibility at point of sale terminals just after the service launched. The move was later attributed to contractual obligations that forbid companies under the MCX umbrella from using alternative mobile payment services.
Facing criticism for limiting customer choice, then-CEO Davidson said such protections are necessary for a successful CurrentC rollout, adding that the exclusivity period would be "measured in months, not years."
"I would observe parenthetically that I don't think too many people complained when Apple went to market with the exclusive that you could only buy it at AT&T, which was the case for a while, and I think that was a reasonable business decision that Apple made," Davidson said at the time.
Today's news comes after Apple CEO Tim Cook dropped a bombshell during a quarterly earnings conference call on Monday, saying major MCX member Best Buy will roll out in-store Apple Pay support later this year. It is not known at this time if other retailers have plans to follow suit.
Andrew Orr
Mike Wuerthele and Malcolm Owen
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Charles Martin
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31 Comments
And still, this is the only place I have seen anything about CurrentC. If it weren't for competition with ApplePay, nobody would even know about it.
Ah MCX can't die fast enough. Having trouble on the home front, Gee thats too bad.
CurrentC already got breached, and they care nothing about consumer privacy. The CEO gets the boot too? Oh yeah, this sounds like a consortium I'd trust with my financial data... NOT! CurrentC is a joke.
CurrentC puts all liability onto the consumer. CurrentC gets breached again, any bank account data gets taken and pulled from accounts, thats on the consumer. Says so right on the website. The banks won't cover you because you bypassed their regular security measures by allowing a direct draft account... They'll just look at you funny and tell you it's not their fault you authorized CurrentC a blank check.
Just another piece of information which points to the highly probable case that this effort is not to be taken seriously.