Wal-Mart Is At War Against Apple Over The New iPhone Payments System  (Source business Insider)

American retailers appear to have gone to war against Apple’s new mobile payments system, Apple Pay, and Apple is losing. Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Rite Aid, and CVS have all said they want nothing to do with the system. Apple appears to have created an ingenious and obviously superior mobile payments system. But retailers control their own checkouts — they get to say who pays with what, not Apple. And Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, is backing the retailers’ system via a company it is partnering with called MCX.

The retailers don’t want Apple to monopolize a system that will produce a lot of valuable customer data. Their system, “CurrentC,” will let them keep that data. Apple Pay basically partners with, and sits on top of, the existing credit-card system and makes credit cards super-easy to use by funneling payments securely through your phone. It shields data from retailers, too — which is why Wal-Mart. don’t like it.

The retailers’ CurrentC system does something similar, but without the fingerprint and without the one-step approval. You have to scan things and punch in codes to make the payment. The advantage of CurrentC is that it automatically applies discounts and coupons to your purchase, so consumers are heavily encouraged to use it. It also funnels a ton of data to retailers.