CurrentC: The Big Retailers’ Clunky Attempt to Kill Apple Pay and Credit Card Fees

Re:CurrentC: The Big Retailers’ Clunky Attempt to Kill Apple... by hayksaakian on Monday October 27, 2014 @02:07AM (#8514122)

Here is some perspective: Walmart's margins are approx. 3% according to [1]

- most if not all of their income comes from transactions/sales. - some significant % of their transactions are paid with credit cards.

With those two things in mind, 2% of a retail transaction might mean a lot more than you think.

Do I think it's a good idea? no.

Do I think a WalMart executive walked through the same chain of logic and found an extra billion? probably.

[1] http://ycharts.com/companies/WMT/profit_margin

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Re:CurrentC: The Big Retailers’ Clunky Attempt to Kill Apple... by TheCoelacanth on Monday October 27, 2014 @05:50PM (#8518390)

It's obvious what retailers get out of it. Credit card fees are a significant amount of money to them.

It's not obvious is what consumers get out of it. What incentive do customers have to use this form of payment? After taking credit card rewards into account, credit cards fees end up making everything <1% more expensive for consumers. That's a small price to pay for the consumer protections that you would give up by using CurrentC instead of a credit card.

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Re:CurrentC: The Big Retailers’ Clunky Attempt to Kill Apple... by hayksaakian on Tuesday October 28, 2014 @02:28AM (#8519766)

oh, it's clearly anti-consumer

they're just banking on the idea that they will make more money saving transaction fees than losing some customers because of incompatible payment methods.

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