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Several of the largest retail chains in theUnited Statesare working on a payment network that will allow customers to pay via a smartphone. It could challenge similar efforts made by both cellphone networks and tech giants.
The Merchant Customer Exchange has already announced 15 members including 7-Eleven, Best Buy, CVS, Lowe’s, Sears, Target and Wal-Mart. The group estimates that almost everyUSsmartphone owners visits at least one member store each week.
The technology behind the deal is still in development. All that’s official so far is that it will be available on “virtually any smartphone” and that as well as payments it will be hooked up to store offers and promo deals.
It’s not just the use of this payment system in the stores that will matter, but also the fact that it could mean the members choose not to accept rival payment services such as Google Wallet. To lose access to all these major players could mean other services simply aren’t attractive to users.
The retailers may also get a big financial advantage from the system beyond simply picking up extra trade from impulse buyers even if they don’t have cash or cards to hand or don’t fancy waiting in line to make a traditional payment. Retailers running their own payment system will cut out fees from the likes of Google or PayPal, and the sheer market force of those involved could even get a better deal from card companies.
The downside of the sheer size of the project is that it will make security absolutely vital. Having access to the card details of customers across all the biggest retailers nationwide will be an extremely juicy target for cyber criminals. Technical issues aside though, the big question is whether even this array of retailers is enough to make a payment system work. It’s still possible that many shoppers will conclude it’s only worth getting the right phone and sorting out a payment account if they can be sure of using the mobile payment pretty much everywhere
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