Apple Pay sparks rift between merchants and credit cards


Bloomberg:

Objections to Apple Pay aren't actually about convenience, reliability, or security--they are about a burgeoning war between a consortium of merchants, led by Walmart, and the credit card companies. Rite-Aid, CVS, Walmart, Best-Buy and about 50 other retailers have been working on their own mobile payments system, called CurrentC. Unlike Apple Pay, which works in conjunction with Visa, Mastercard, and American Express, CurrentC cuts out the credit card networks altogether. The benefit to the merchants is clear: They would save the swipe fees they pay to the credit card companies now, which average about two percent of the cost of transactions.

This reminds me of when Apple got into it with magazine publishers over Newsstand. At that time, Apple pushed for customer privacy. That stance was on the side of consumers.


In this case merchants want to impose restrictions on their customers that are in their on interest. It's clear the credit card companies and Apple have a profit angle here, but it also aligns with consumer interests. I can understand why merchants want to implement their own payment system. All these swipe fees certainly add up and either eat away at profits or makes it more difficult to compete on price alone. One option is the merchants could offer discounts for a particular payment method like cash or this CurrentC. That would at least give consumers an option for their privacy and convenience other than shopping elsewhere.