What it boils down to is the fact that one technology is designed for the users (Apple) and the other is designed for the merchants (CurrentC). Normally I’d say that the product with the most user appeal will win but the power and size behind the CurrentC group is too big to ignore. People aren’t reliant on mobile payments at this point so stopping Apple Pay out of the gate is a strong move as almost nobody will miss it.

CurrentC requires an app, password and QR Code to be scanned.  It works for pre-paid, cash accounts.  This is a solution to a business problem (lower transaction fees, better customer tracking) that is being touted as addressing a customer need.  People like using their credit cards.  The US economy (and Canada to a lesser extent) are built on easy access to credit.  They’ll be shocked to find out that people don’t have positive balances in their bank accounts.

I’m not even sure if the CurrentC group of retailers (really big retailers with over 110,000 storefronts in North America) are even serious about deploying it.  It strikes me as a competitive wedge to negotiate lower transaction fees with Credit Card companies. They are probably also using it to extract better terms (customer info) from Apple and Google with their competing wallet technologies.