The announcement Wednesday by U.S. merchant group MCX that it is working with U.S. vendor Paydiant for its planned QR-code based mobile-payments service raises doubts of just what role remains for France-based Gemalto.
It was only last April that Gemalto CEO Olivier Piou was boasting to financial analysts that the MCX contract could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Gemalto, with the vendor earning a fee for each transaction that runs through the mobile-payments system that such big U.S. merchants such as Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy and the Gap Inc. plan to launch.
Gemalto was gearing up to host and operate that platform, as well as providing wallet software, including development kits, enabling member merchants to build their own MCX-enabled wallet apps.