Apple Pay rival CurrentC delayed, may never see release following employee layoffs

The CurrentC horse may never even make it out of the gate.

CurrentC, the payment platform backed by a group of retailers under the banner Merchant Customer Exchange that caused a kerfuffle when Apple Pay launched, may never see release.

The consortium announced Monday that the CurrentC rollout has been postponed and that the company will lay off 30 employees after “feedback from the marketplace and our Columbus pilot.” MCX tested CurrentC at Target, Walmart, and other retail locations in Columbus, Ohio.

Walmart is currently experimenting with its own mobile payment platform, while Target has confirmed that it will support Apple Pay at stores nationwide later this year.

MCX CEO Brian Mooney said the group will focus on “working with financial institutions [like Chase] to enable and scale mobile payment solutions.”

Mooney has yet to provide a release date for CurrentC.

In short, CurrentC was supposed to launch last summer, but encountered resistance after retailers stated they wanted to “do it right”, according to Mooney. CurrentC relies on QR codes and one-time paycodes for each transaction. MCX said the technology powering CurrentC could pivot at any time and may one day use Near-Field Communications, but given that the group’s retail members are already jumping ship and that CurrentC lags behind Apple, Google, and Samsung when it comes to actually shipping a mobile payment product, the app’s official launch is looking less and less likely.

Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

Via Macworld and TechCrunch