Rite Aid and CVS Block Apple Pay and Google Wallet

An anonymous reader writes CVS and Rite Aid have reportedly shut off the NFC-based contactless payment option at point of sale terminals in thousands of stores. The move will make it impossible to pay for products using Apple Pay or Google Wallet. Rite Aid posted at their stores: "Please note that we do not accept Apple Pay at this time. However we are currently working with a group of large retailers to develop a mobile wallet that allows for mobile payments attached to credit cards and bank accounts directly from a smart phone. We expect to have this feature available in the first half of 2015."

Comments

Good luck with that.

[Noxal]

CurrentC seems way too involved for most people to ever give a shit about.

Re:Good luck with that.

[ShanghaiBill]

My bank account is just as protected as my credit cards are, possibly more so.

Not true at all. Credit cards have explicit legal protections for consumers. Also, merchants must go through an approval process before they can charge credit cards. Additionally, you keep your money while the dispute is resolved. If instead, they deduct directly from your bank account, the money is GONE, and it might already be gone from the recipient account, and in the hands of some Nigerian prince, before you even file your dispute. Unlike with a credit card, your bank has no direct financial interest in resolving the dispute.

DOA due to Liability shift to consumer...

[kbonin]

It appears that CurrentC moves liability exposure almost entirely onto the consumer, whereas Visa limits consumer exposure to $50 that most banks waive in actual fraud. Add full access to your bank account to make the worst-case liability exposure whatever you have in your account, and privacy terms that allow them to use health related data that could have been protected under HIPPA. Tell me again why I would want to use this?

Re:DOA due to Liability shift to consumer...

[Solandri]

It appears that CurrentC moves liability exposure almost entirely onto the consumer, whereas Visa limits consumer exposure to $50 that most banks waive in actual fraud.

They are two sides of the same coin. One shifts liability from the merchants to the consumer, the other shifts liability from the consumer to the merchants.

If we really want security in the electronic transaction system, liability has fall upon the organization(s) operating the transaction system - Visa, the banks, etc. If they don't pay a financial cost for fraud, they have no incentive to improve the system to prevent fraud. Penalizing consumers just drives them to use cash. Penalizing merchants just drives them to stop accepting cards and electronic payment. It's only when you penalize the folks who control the electronic transaction systems that you'll see improvements to said system.

Re:No thanks.

[CaptainDork]

Apple has negotiated a lower fee and banks are agreeable to absorb initial revenue loss in an effort to make NFC a standard.. The fees are needed mostly to pay off credit card fraud and Apple Pay reduces that liability (so the reasoning goes). Rumor has it that the Apple Pay user will be liable for fraud to a much larger degree because it's so hard for the process to be abused.

The competing CurrentC standard, supported by major retailers, kills credit card fees and puts the fraud burden 100% on the consumer. For that reason, retailers favor CurrentC over Apple Pay and Google Wallet, both of which use NFC.

While Google Wallet and Apple Pay are available now, CurrentC is going to be late to the party by about a year.

That delay is what's prompting Rite Aid and CVS (supporters of CurrentC) to pull NFC from their POS.