Thoughts on CurrentC
For TechCrunch’s recent article, they reverse engineered CurrentC’s application (currently only available by invitation) and made some observations based on what they found. In light of this press, as well as BIG’s involvement in CU Wallet (which is using Paydiant’s technology), we decided to do some research of our own.
Full disclosure: I am the biggest Apple Fanboy there is. I have everything Apple. My laptop, phone, home computer, TV and, soon, even my watch. I buy everything they sell the moment they sell it. Not surprisingly, I am a big fan of Apple Pay (as evidenced by the many articles I have done on the subject). I’m also working with a company that will provide a similar wallet for Credit unions called CU Wallet. I think that there some things that Credit Unions can provide that go beyond Apple Pay. I believe in choice. I want to pay whatever way I want to pay. So, I think you have to have a few different options. Just like there isn’t one network (MasterCard, Visa), there won’t be just one mobile payment option. Particularly because Apple Pay will not work on Android phones, which represents 52% of the smartphone population.
A little background: CurrentC is the name of the application being presented by MCX. MCX represents a myriad of major retailers, including what I will call the Unholy Alliance of Target and Walmart. These retailers chose not to participate in the Apple Pay rollout (yet) as they wanted to build a platform of their own. The recent news around Rite Aid turning off Apple Pay in their shops has caused somewhat of a media storm.
So, about this CurrentC technology…
The application is more than just payments. Based on these screens, the app appears to let you load loyalty cards as well as track your points at various retailers. It also includes allowing you take advantage of coupons instantly. I like this option. I have been using the Safeway app as of late. It allows you to put coupons from their application onto your loyalty card. Just enter the loyalty number at the register, and it applies any coupons you have. My wife also carries around a bunch of gift cards for various restaurants that we have received as gifts, etc. It appears you will be able to use this system to hold these cards electronically. I love the idea of not carrying these items around anymore. Retailers are betting that this will drive business, and I think they are right.
There was some criticism of CurrentC’s payment portion, and it does appear there is a component of ACH involved based on this graphic. Shown is a standard graphic that is used by applications to help people find their routing and account numbers in order to setup ACH withdrawals. It infers that they are planning on having you fund some account similar to the Target Red Card via ACH. Based on the application, I also believe that you will be able to load credit cards. In talking with Jed Rice, Senior Vice President of Business Development at Paydiant (technology provider for the MCX payment backbone), he communicated that there is a willingness to work with financial institutions. I’ve even found a Bank of America icon among the assets of their application.
Support for the pump. It appears that this will work at gas pumps. From what I can tell, based on the instructions found in the app, you can either scan the QR code if the pump supports it or you can enter the code (see image below). I guess this officially dispels the issues of using your cell phone near the gas tank. This is good news for Conoco, an MCX partner. (Mythbusters also cleared this up some time ago.) I also foresee a very cool option once applications are available in your car’s dashboard technology. Drive up, click a few buttons on the dash, get out and pump. It will mean no fishing for your wallet or phone.
Woohooo Receipts!
Based on the word “receipt” coming up so often in the code, it appears that there will be support for receipts. It’s my biggest hope for the application and a big deficiency of Apple Pay, in my opinion. Receipt support would be huge for me. I always need to find receipts, and I would love to have them stored somewhere central, and it makes sense to have that storage be my digital wallet. I would also love to get at this from a home banking point of view, having them in-line with history.
Privacy
Much was made in the TechCrunch article regarding privacy and the application. Our analysis found the same screens, and that you could turn them off and on. We also believe that this is part of a suite of products provided by a company called Localytics. Localytics is a profiling company commonly used by CVS, EBAY, Microsoft, Salesforce, Enterprise and other major retailers. We were encouraged by the dashboard allowing you to turn various features on and off. We also noted the optional transactional data and loyalty rewards options.
Finally, QR code technology
It does appear that the application’s primary way of communicating with retailer POS systems is by QR code. Many people consider this clunky (including me at one time). However, lately QR code technology has come along way. The use case that changed my mind is airport security. A frequent traveller, I hate carrying around boarding passes. Like many travelers at first, I was a bit concerned the first time I got in the line with nothing buy my license and my phone. Now it is no big deal. I’ve noticed more and more travelers going through the TSA and boarding the plane with QR code technology (My experiences are with United and Southwest ). I am also a frequent user of Starbucks’ application, which uses the same barcode type technology. I have never had a problem scanning. Bottom line: if the TSA can use QR codes, then it must work. During my talk with Jed Rice he did say that, for android, they are looking at NFC and BLE (Bluetooth low energy). With the Apple iOS, NFC has been locked down in terms of the ability to use it with a third party program. It means that, for now, Apple Pay will only work with NFC on iOS devices. Apple has taken a similar approach with Siri in that it has been removed from the developer platform, forcing providers to develop speech software of their own.
It seems CurrectC is using a different kind of security for its QR technology, choosing to tokenize the transaction as opposed to the tender, making it cloud based (at least that is my assumption based on the screen below).
Conclusion
I do love the simplicity of Apple Pay, and I am looking forward to waving my cool Apple watch at a POS device in the future. That being said; it does lack some things that I would like to see in my digital wallet. I think coupons and loyalty offers are important in today’s economy as people are always looking for deals. I also think that there is room for more than one player in the payment space. If I had my way we would all use BlockChain technology (this is the tech behind Bitcoin) as a crypto currency solution. It would solve a lot of problems.
