CurrentC Needs More Development Time Before People Can Begin to Not Use It ⇥ recode.net

Jason Del Rey, Recode:

CurrentC, the payments app being created by a consortium of big retailers known as MCX, may not launch widely this year as originally planned, MCX CEO Brian Mooney told Re/code in an interview on Tuesday. The company will begin a public pilot of its app in Columbus, Ohio, in a few weeks and will not rush a wider rollout if the product is not ready, he said.

“This is a long game,” Mooney said. “Certainly going faster is always better — that’s not necessarily a debatable point. But we’re going to do it right.”

“Right”, eh? How so?

Instead, CurrentC’s beta users can only pay using one of three options: Gift cards, a store’s private-label payment card or direct hookups with their checking accounts. Mainstream credit cards carry higher transaction fees than these options, which is a big reason why they aren’t currently part of the offering. Mooney said CurrentC could add support for mainstream cards in the future, but wouldn’t say when or which ones.

Why bother?