Apple Pay rival CurrentC to roll out by mid-2015

According to the source, CurrentC will exit limited trials and officially launch in one US market over the next few months.

Few details are known about the service, but it is expected to merge payments and loyalty benefits and will give retailers additional insight into the spending habits of customers who are members. Less is known about the benefits it may provide for consumers.

A small-scale trial began in 2014 and CurrentC is currently being tested in several undisclosed markets around the US. However, its use is restricted to employees of member retailers, which include Walmart, 7-Eleven, Dunkin Donuts, Sears, Best Buy, Exxon Mobil and Gap.

Merchant Content Exchange (MCX), the operator of the service, plans to make it available to the public in mid-2015, but in a single market at first. The location “will be determined based on a number of factors, including retail support, infrastructure and consumer population”.

CurrentC got a higher profile in October 2014 when pharmacy chains CVS and Rite Aid, both MCX members, stopped accepting Apple Pay a week after it launched. At the time it was widely interpreted as an attempt to block the rival service while CurrentC was getting off the ground.

At the time many questioned CurrentC’s potential for success based on its reliance on barcodes rather than NFC short-range wireless communications used by Apple and competitors.

With CurrentC, a user points their phone camera at a one-time barcode displayed on a retailer terminal to trigger payment. The payment takes place using a previously registered bank account, so no payment information is exchanged or transmitted in stores.

That is not perhaps as easy as NFC payments, which can be accomplished by bringing a phone near a reader, but MCX argues that barcodes are more widely supported than NFC in smartphones. MCX said it’s open to using other technologies and that appears to be happening. A version based on Bluetooth is also being tested.