The MCX merchant consortium, which is gearing up to launch a mobile-wallet platform and bar-code based mobile-payment services in the U.S. has named the former head of mobile commerce for Barclaycard US as CEO, following a long search.
MCX, which includes such large U.S. chains Wal-Mart, Target and Best Buy, announced today it has hired Dekkers Davidson, who while at UK-based Barclaycard’s US credit card unit launched a bar-code based mobile payment trial in two cities.
Davidson, during his two years with Barclaycard, which ended in March, also was involved in enabling customers to easily add a cloud-based Barclaycard application to the Google Wallet and engaged in dealings with the Isis mobile operator joint venture that would see a Barclaycard-issued payment application in the Isis Mobile Wallet.
The small U.S. Barclaycard unit, known for its co-branded cards with retail, travel and entertainment partners, has not yet made a card available for the Isis wallet, which is still in the pilot stage in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Austin, Texas.
When asked if Davidson was hired mainly for his experience in launching the Barclaycard bPay service, which uses QR codes and cloud-based payment, a spokesman for MCX told NFC Times that Davidson was chosen “for the full extent of his experience rather than for any one line on his resume.
“It was important to MCX to find a leader with expertise not only in mobile, but also in financial services and networks,” said the spokesman.
MCX, short for Merchant Customer Exchange, whose list of merchants also includes large U.S. convenience store chains, gasoline stations and clothing retailers, has said it will launch its mobile wallet platform with bar codes and cloud-based technologies to start off with, not NFC. It has said it might support NFC later.
While MCX hasn’t said the types of payment services it will support in the mobile-commerce platform and apps that its members would launch, among them is expected to be some type of private-label service that could allow the merchants to pay lower transaction fees compared with bank-issued open-loop payment supporting the Visa and MasterCard brands. MCX said its platform would also include offers, loyalty and other promotions, some of which would be location-based.
Besides lowering fees, representatives of MCX merchants have also said they are launching the mobile-commerce platform to better protect transaction data and to have more control over the smartphone user interfaces consumers see.
Davidson Worked on Cloud Wallet Pilot
The Barclaycard Mobile Wallet pilot, now called bPay, is available on both Android and iOS phones with about 40 small merchants in Barclaycard US’s home base of Wilmington, Del., and nearby Newark, N.J., according to the bPay site. Users can load their credit cards into the mobile wallet to make the payments, which they do by scanning a QR code at the terminal or restaurant receipt at the participating merchant location.
Barclaycard stores the payment card account information on its servers. Discount offers that users add and activate in their mobile wallets, must be used along with the cloud-based payment.
Users, however, need a reliable cell phone connection in the store to complete the transactions, and Barclaycard said certain merchants have a Wi-Fi network that customers might need to use for the purchases.
It’s unclear how MCX plans to support the major payment brands, such as Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover, in its wallet apps or even if it will support these brands, at all, though it seems unlikely MCX could avoid this. And the merchant group has said in the past iit would be willing to partner with banks or other financial institutions.
MCX Still Mum on Launch Date
MCX also is declining to say when it will launch its mobile-wallet platform and payment services, with the group’s spokesman telling NFC Times only that: “We have not shared a timeline yet, but I would not mistake a lack of announcements for a lack of progress. Things are moving quickly.”
MCX last week announced that it had hired U.S.-based FIS to handle payment processing, routing and settlement for the mobile-wallet software, which is being developed by France-based Gemalto.
Besides providing this wallet software, including development kits enabling member merchants to build their own MCX-enabled wallet apps, Gemalto will secure the bar-code based payment services through the MCX-based wallets.
While Gemalto’s April announcement of its deal with MCX emphasized the mobile-wallet software it is providing, it appears the mobile-payment piece is the key part of the contract the vendor has with the merchant group.
Gemalto’s Allynis mobile-payment platform is expected to secure the bar-code transactions and communication between the consumers, merchants and acquiring banks.
Gemalto CEO Olivier Piou in April told financial analysts that the vendor would get paid per transaction, for what he described as a lucrative contract. But he declined to indicate when MCX planned to launch.
“I can tell you, they are very eager to do it, because they simply know they are two years behind Isis and others,” Piou said. “So it’s going to be an interesting competition.”
He added that MCX is not using NFC to start with “simply because the customer (MCX) prefers to use bar codes, because they have some established base, but it doesn’t prevent that it goes to NFC later on.”