At least two U.S. retailers have disabled Apple Pay in their stores, with analysts speculating that the move may be intended to promote a rival payment system, The New York Times reports.
Both Rite Aid and CVS have disabled NFC payments in their stores, and although the move appears to specifically target Apple Pay, other contactless payment systems such as Google Wallet and even MasterCard PayPass and VISA payWave are also affected by the move.
Rite Aid and CVS are part of a consortium of retailers known as the Merchant Consumer Exchange (MCX) that also includes Wal-mart, Best Buy, and Gap, among others.
The group is presently in the process of developing their own payment system, CurrentC, which is scheduled to be released in 2015 and will link payments directly to a customer’s checking account using a dedicated app. CurrentC will use an on-screen QR Code rather than NFC, removing the requirement for NFC payment terminals while also bypassing the credit card companies and their associated merchant fees entirely.
