Best Buy explained Tuesday that it will support Apple Pay mobile payments, while also remaining a member of the MCX group of retailers that has promoted an alternative payment system called CurrentC.
Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), a group of large U.S. merchants, said Monday it expects to launch an early version of its CurrentC mobile payment app mid-year in an unnamed, mid-sized market.
Best Buy said its customers could start using Apple Pay from Monday to make purchases on its app through the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, thus appearing to break ranks with a group of leading U.S. merchants who are backing an alternative payment system.
The launch of Apple Pay last month jump-started the mobile payments business, with several companies pushing hard to become your preferred payment method in stores. Even more competitors are on the horizon, promising to bring a lot more security and convenience compared to today's plastic payment cards.
The company behind CurrentC, an in-store mobile payment system backed by some of the biggest retailers in the U.S., attempted on Wednesday to play down a growing controversy over whether its backers could accept Apple Pay.