[Swordmaker]

ApplePay competitor CurrentC may not launch this year after all, according to its CEO. It's doing trials in Columbus, Ohio, of only proprietary store cards, gift cards, and direct wihtdrawal from users' bank accounts by ACH transfers. ACH payments have only a 48 hour challenge period before they are permanent and cannot be reversed. Two of the major participants, BestBuy and RiteAid have already announced they will be accepting ApplePay starting soon. — PING!

ApplePay competition CurrentC may not start this year.
Ping!

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[nitzy]

Remember all the search engines before Google? That is how you will remember this product and Apple Pay and Google Pay.

There is something called Looppay that is going to blow all of these away. Currently, you need a fob on your keychain or a special case for your phone but starting with the Galaxy 6, it will be included in many (maybe all) Samsung phones.

The trick is that it physically acts as though you are swiping a card when all you are doing is pressing a button and holding it near the card reader. It tricks the card reader into thinking it has been swiped.

So here are the steps...

1.) Purchase hardware - Either the fob, a special phone case or a smart phone with the hardware baked in.

2.) Associate your debit cards, credit cards, gift cards, etc with your Looppay account.

3.) Open the Looppay app on your phone to pick which payment option you want to use for the current transaction.

4.) Press a button on your phone, case, fob, etc... and hold the device near a card reader.

The reader then thinks you actually swiped the card you chose.

It already works in 100% of businesses that accept credit cards. There is no lag in adoption rate as you wait for merchants to keep up to date.

[erod]

I hope CurrentC dies a fast and painful death. The fact that it is making consumer’s lives a nightmare by disabling the convience of NFC at major retailers really pisses me off.

[MediaMole]

CurrentC is the worst implementation of smart phone payments I’ve ever heard. It will die a quick death.

The real issue is what will work securely with a single back end process.

Most NFC enabled terminals don’t care if you are paying with ApplePay or Google’s version. Ultimately, everyone will essentially have the same service working on different phones, watches or key fob devices.

I spent an hour this afternoon talking with a banking executive who said that NFC payments (smart phones, etc) will be ubiquitous by the end of 2016. The government mandated switch to the chip-enabled credit cards is forcing replacement of all point of sale terminals, so everyone is getting NFC-enabled terminals with the exception of the CurrentC-associated retailers.

[AFreeBird]

This is a fail before it even gets out the door.

[ReignOfError]

Here’s how CurrentC works: You enter your bank account information and social security number. At checkout, you scan a QR code, then hold up your phone for the cashier to scan another QR code. The CurrentC app collects, and shares with paying clients, your financial information, location, and for some reason no one has ever adequately explained, health information.

It is inferior to Apple Pay, and anything suggested by Google or Samsung, in every conceivable way.