“Retail giants are likely to blink and support Apple’s new mobile wallet, speculates RBC Capital in a research report,” Reinhardt Krause reports for Investor’s Business Daily. “While Apple’s strength is its 800 million or so global iTunes users with accounts linked to credit and debit cards, a retail consortium called MCX (Merchant Customer Exchange) has powerful backers, including Wal-Mart Stores, Best Buy and more than 60 other retailers. Under MCX’s rules, its members can’t accept competing mobile payment systems, as IBD reported in March. In a blog post Wednesday, MCX denied that it fines retailers who break their contracts.”
“The retailers, who process more than $1 trillion in traditional in-store payments annually, plan to launch their own digital wallet app, called CurrentC. Pharmacies CVS and Rite Aid have turned off checkout terminals compatible with technology Apple is using,” Krause reports. “RBC analyst Daniel Perlin, in his report, said that while MCX now has more retail clout, the consortium will ultimately work with Apple.”
Krause reports, “‘Looking at 2013 sales from the top 100 U.S. retailers, we estimate that about 38% of sales are from retailers who are members of MCX, while 13% are from retailers accepting Apple Pay,’ wrote Perlin… ‘At the end of the day, we believe that retailers will accept whatever form of payment consumers want to use, as the retailer does not want to lose the sale.'”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Giblet” for the heads up.]
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