CVS, Rite Aid Drop ApplePay

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Two major retailers disabled ApplePay from their stores over the weekend

Rite Aid and CVS are among the retailers who have abandoned ApplePay in favor of a new system called CurrentC they are developing to compete with it, according to Daily Finance.

ApplePay was unveiled in September with great promise to allow customers to make purchases by simply holding their iPhone 6 or 6Plus devices in front of store readers.

While Rite Aid and CVS were not part of the initial group of retailers who announced that they would accept ApplePay, the New York Times reported that the technology had been functioning in Rite Aid and CVS stores over the past week.

According to a Rite Aid spokeswoman who spoke with the Time, the company is “still in the process of evaluating our mobile payment options,” and she said that they do not presently accept ApplePay in stores.

The New York Times said that some analysts believe that this move was intended to favor a rival system called CurrentC that is under development by a consortium of merchants known as Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX. Rite Aid and CVS are part of that consortium, not part of the group of retailers that had teamed up with Apple on its payment system.

According to USA Today, the issue appears to be a conflict between Apple Pay and a mobile payment system called CurrentC . Instead of using an NFC chip, CurrentC generates a QR code that is displayed on the merchant’s checkout terminal. Once customers have linked their bank accounts to the CurrentC system, they can scan the QR code from the terminal to complete their purchase.

“Clearly Rite Aid and CVS are making a business decision over a customer satisfaction decision,” Patrick Moorhead, president of Moor Insights & Strategy told the New York Times.

The New York Times explained that CurrentC will not be available until 2015, but it will allow  consumers to download an app and connect it to their debit accounts. Then, every time a person makes a purchase, the merchant must scan a QR code, a special symbol that acts much like a bar code and initiates the payment transfer.

Critics of MCX say that CurrentC is more difficult to use than Apple Pay, which does not require customers to unlock their phones or open an app. And they say it is far more complicated than paying with cash or a credit card.

But MCX has time to tweak the technology and its marketing strategy before the release in 2015. And since MCX merchants are all working together, CurrentC could offer consumers enticing deals and loyalty rewards for shopping at any one of the dozens of participating stores.