MCX

MCX announces it’s ending CurrentC beta test, postponing further releases

MCX (the Merchant Consortium Exchange) has notified testers that it will be ending its CurrentC beta test soon. The Consumerist on Tuesday shared an email sent by the company, telling users that it's going to shut down the mobile payment service on June 28.

On that day, all active accounts will be disabled and beta testers will not be able to access their accounts through the CurrentC app. Worse than that, the email also says that MCX is postponing further releases of CurrentC, and there are no plans for an official launch.

Apple Pay competitor CurrentC may not launch until 2016

CurrentC, the mobile payments app back by a consortium of major retailers known as MCX, may not launch until 2016, Recode reports. The outlet spoke with MCX CEO Brian Mooney yesterday, and he says that the app may not be ready to go this year like originally planned.

A public pilot of the app will go live in Ohio next month, and Mooney says that MCX won't push for a wider rollout if it's not ready. "This is a long game," he said said. “Certainly going faster is always better — that’s not necessarily a debatable point. But we’re going to do it right."

Mobile payment consortium MCX replaces CEO

The Merchant Customer Exchange, better known as MCX, announced Tuesday that it's replacing its CEO. Dekkers Davidson is out, and banking veteran Brian Mooney is in as the [interim] chief executive for the consortium behind Apple Pay competitor CurrentC.

The news is interesting for a few reasons. For one, it's not common for a company developing an app to replace its CEO before the app launches to the public. And two, it comes just 1 day after MCX member Best Buy announced it would start accepting Apple Pay.

Best Buy app now accepting Apple Pay, coming to retail stores later this year

Best Buy announced today that it will begin supporting Apple Pay within its mobile app, effective immediately, and within its stores later this year. This is a major partnership for Apple, as it’s the first one with a member of MCX—the Walmart led consortium of retailers that are backing payment app 'CurrentC.'

A Best Buy spokeswoman told Recode that “we remain invested in MCX,” but she would not comment on when CurrentC will be available to the public and if the electronics retailer would accept it at launch. “We are actively monitoring their pilots,” she said. “It’s too early to declare whether we will take it at launch.”

Apple Pay rival MCX already hacked, but insists it’s OK to keep your sensitive data in the cloud

The whole CVS/Rite Aid/Apple Pay controversy is about to get uglier as MCX, the consortium of retailers who back the competing CurrentC mobile payment system, on Wednesday responded to accusations that it was purposefully blocking Apple Pay, Google Wallet and other NFC-based payment solutions and requiring participating retailers to use CurrentC exclusively.

Apple Pay has been praised for being secure and protecting your privacy by not sharing customer or transaction data with merchants. According to MCX, it does not store sensitive customer information in the mobile app. Instead, users’ payment data is stored “in our secure cloud-hosted network”.

Maybe I'm reading their blog post wrong, but if customer data and especially payment information is stored in the cloud, then it's not secure and this is precisely why Apple Pay is, in my personal opinion, better.