Tech Mobile Contactless Marketing Could Turn The U.S. EMV Frown Upside Down

More than a decade after the U.S. payments community tried and failed to make contactless payments work, EMV resentment and a well-funded mobile payment app movement may make U.S. contactless payments not merely viable, but vibrant—perhaps as soon as late 2018.

One result could be that the U.S. adopts mobile contactless payments before and in higher numbers than chip cards as tech giants like Apple and Samsung and Google blitz consumers with mobile payment app marketing that was not a factor when the country tried contactless a decade ago.

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Walmart Pay: For The Retailer Who’s Given Up Trying To Get His Way

When Walmart last week introduced Walmart Pay, it was shown to be a simple app that would accept “any major payment type” but it would only work at Walmart. In short, it was the last thing that interchange-fee-hating Walmart wanted to do, especially in the mobile world. MCX’s original vision, a merchant utopia where transactions were done in the non-interchange grab-the-money-directly-from-the-shopper’s-bank-account universe and one app was used at thousands of different merchant stores, was Walmart’s dream.

Mike Cook is the Walmart Senior VP/Assistant Treasurer who initiated the idea of MCX and pushed it so aggressively that many involved—and especially those who chose to not be involved—said the name virtually stood for Mike Cook Exchange. When Walmart Pay was announced, it was Cook whose name was on a statement issued to the media. Said Cook: “We remain committed to MCX, and recently launched acceptance of CurrentC in all of our locations in the Columbus market. We view Walmart Pay and CurrentC as complementary mobile payments solutions, and expect the two to build off each other’s success.” Walmart expects “the two to build off each other’s success”? If Walmart had even the slightest confidence that MCX and CurrentC were going to enjoy even a modicum of success, Walmart Pay wouldn’t have been rolled out. It’s true they will support both—there’s not a lot of reason to not do so—but Walmart Pay is everything Walmart didn’t want to do.

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