Best Buy, Target, Walmart, others to take on Google Wallet In a move that opens a new front in the ongoing bricks-and-mortar versus e-commerce struggle, a group of fifteen major retailers have joined forces to develop a new mobile payment system to challenge Google Wallet. The consortium, which includes such American heavy-hitters as 7-Eleven, Best Buy, CVS, Lowe's, Shell, Target, and …
So? That's nothing new. The business are trying to take back the cut Visa/MC and the others normally ask when their cards are used.
As for the tech involved, it will be interesting to see how it works. They've already mentioned several ways, though I think SMS is potentially too slow for point of sale. QR Codes have potential but I can sense potential security issues here. Same with anything based on Bluetooth technology.
Sick and tired of US retailers home-made alternatives to a proper system. Like the petrol pumps that demand the billing zip code for credit cards instead of a pin code, and the sudden appearance of mag swipe on iphones, years after the civilised world has chip-and-pin. Starbucks qr-code-on-yer-phone-scanned-by-the-till instead of a proper system. On and on and on, contrapting ramshackle systems instead of co-operating on standards
where would this PIN code for credit cards come from ? some cards have PIN codes for cash advance but I wouldn't want to use that at the pump. If someone were to introduce a new generic PIN then the world would have to wait until the majority of CC issuers can handle it, which may take a while.
I don't have an issue with the zip code prompt myself.
Even before the EMV connector was widely used on cards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EMV) the banks issued and maintained a PIN system used all over at least europe and south america. Terminals had to be complient and approved, and were often issued by the banks: but there was a standard that they all more or less agreed to.
I have been using swipe-and-pin terminals since the late 1980s, and chip-and-pin since the early years of this century. I don';t think I have had a card mag-swiped outside the USA since around 2003. Even in Malawi, China, and The Andaman islands shops, cash machines, and banks all work with the chip-and-pin method. Damnm, I designed a swipe-and-pin terminal back in 1976, when the banks wanted to maintain separate PIN algorithms.
The world has had a generic PIN system since some time in the 1980s.
You don't see a lot of true "robot" pumps in the US. About the only ones I've seen belong to price clubs where you have to swipe a membership card first, removing both the ZIP code requirement and most of the potential foreign traffic. All the other ones I've seen have at least one attendant on duty with a cash register: usually because cash is still a high proportion of pump payments in the US: even in the recent "pay first" environment.
Theres never been co-operation on any system be it from running buses with several companys competing on routes,the beta max and vhs video war,gas and electric services and on to the best way to screw a customer [Sales].Shops at least the big ones, want in on the 2 1/2% [ish] that visa take from their cream pie.
Similar to another reader, I heard that this new system will allow vendors to have their own 'apps'. That's just plain stupid - who is going to load, keep, or search for their Walmart app while standing in the checkout line?
The article mentions that these companies are expert at managing the user experience, but they have yet to point to a single benefit to the customer!
I go to Starbucks every morning and occasionally have the 'pleasure' of standing behind some dude trying to pay his bill with the Starbucks app - which apparently involves him bringing up the app and then showing some QR code that the cashier then scans. It's pretty quick usually - but definitely not as quick as simply swiping a credit card.
The only way for a new system to replace credit cards is if it is at least as easy and fast to use. So far, I don't see that (except maybe with Google Wallet - "bumping" sounds simple/efficient enough).
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