Although Dekkers Davidson, CEO of the big MCX mobile-commerce consortium in the U.S., said the group is working on Bluetooth low energy and NFC, the main technology MCX is expected to launch with next year will still be QR codes.
Although some published reports following Davidson’s telephone press conference last week indicated MCX might change course on technology to NFC to match Apple Pay and also add Bluetooth low energy, or BLE, the group has been working on QR code-enabled payments, coupons and rewards for the past few years and is currently piloting it in the U.S. (See table below with details of technology for four U.S. mobile-payments platforms: Apple Pay, MCX, Softcard and Google Wallet).
MCX held the rare press conference last week as it faces growing pressure to explain its exclusivity clause for members that is blocking Apple Pay and other NFC-enabled mobile wallets. The merchant group also had to explain an embarrassing hack of email addresses for its pilot users, which came at the same time it was touting security and privacy of its CurrrentC mobile-commerce platform.
