Hands on with Apple Pay Competitor CurrentC • Hacker News Board

Re: Hands on with Apple Pay Competitor CurrentC

#41

Post by Shank » Thu, Nov 05, 2015, 5:31 PM UTC

jimkri wrote: post #10

I really don't understand what the companies involved with MCX are thinking. They build an app that is going in the opposite direction of where the market is heading and limit the amount of payments they accept. I was in line at 7-11 at my university, where an girl was trying to use the currentc app. She was 2 people ahead of me, when I went up to pay she was still trying to pay with the app. At first her screen was…

The Google Play rating is partially because of irate Apple Pay & (formerly Google Wallet) customers. CurrentC prevents (prevented?) a retailer from using competing contactless payment solutions.

I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the reviews have never used the actual app, but have instead downloaded it and rated it one star in response to stories like this: https://daringfireball.net/2014/10/nfc_apple_pay

Re: Hands on with Apple Pay Competitor CurrentC

#42

Post by InfiniteEntropy » Thu, Nov 05, 2015, 5:39 PM UTC

jimkri wrote: post #10

I really don't understand what the companies involved with MCX are thinking. They build an app that is going in the opposite direction of where the market is heading and limit the amount of payments they accept. I was in line at 7-11 at my university, where an girl was trying to use the currentc app. She was 2 people ahead of me, when I went up to pay she was still trying to pay with the app. At first her screen was…

They're thinking they'd rather avoid paying credit card fees so they'd prefer to get straight at peoples money at the cost of making it a piece of shit to use.

Re: Hands on with Apple Pay Competitor CurrentC

#43

Post by TheCoelacanth » Thu, Nov 05, 2015, 5:44 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #12

jimkri wrote: post #10

I really don't understand what the companies involved with MCX are thinking. They build an app that is going in the opposite direction of where the market is heading and limit the amount of payments they accept. I was in line at 7-11 at my university, where an girl was trying to use the currentc app. She was 2 people ahead of me, when I went up to pay she was still trying to pay with the app. At first her screen was…

A clue to what the companies are thinking from the article: "Its payments are also routed from the retailer to the ACH system instead of the credit card system, which saves retailers from having to pay interchange fees (typically around 2% of the transaction amount)"

They also get to offload the burden of paying for fraudulent transactions onto the user.

Re: Hands on with Apple Pay Competitor CurrentC

#44

Post by pbreit » Thu, Nov 05, 2015, 6:52 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #25

pbreit wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My sense is the superiority of the mag-stripe is a reason why commerce in the USA exceeds the rest of the world. But I would agree that the move to EMV is a step backwards.

My sense is the superiority of the mag-stripe is a reason why commerce in the USA exceeds the rest of the world I suspect it is more closely connected to population and GDP.

Well, per capita. And I would not discount frictionless payments.

Re: Hands on with Apple Pay Competitor CurrentC

#45

Post by serge2k » Thu, Nov 05, 2015, 6:56 PM UTC

> 3 security questions

Why are these still a thing? Is it regulations or something?

Re: Hands on with Apple Pay Competitor CurrentC

#46

Post by serge2k » Thu, Nov 05, 2015, 7:08 PM UTC

prplhaz4 wrote: post #32

Did more research - it seems like this article is wrong about fraud liability (in addition to QR tokenization). There are plenty of things wrong with CurrentC, no need to make stuff up... To further protect CurrentC™ consumers, our zero-liability policy protects consumers in the event unauthorized or fraudulent charges are made to their checking account as a result of unauthorized ACH transactions processed through B…

Their policy, not the credit card companies policy. I'd much rather be protected by visa/mastercard.

Re: Hands on with Apple Pay Competitor CurrentC

#47

Post by prplhaz4 » Thu, Nov 05, 2015, 9:23 PM UTC

jszumski wrote: post #23

prplhaz4 wrote: post #3

I believe CurrentC's (Paydiant's) QR code tokenization works the same as you've described Apple Pay tokenization - the merchant POS does not see any payment info other than a one-time-use token. This was another decent teardown of Paydiant's Subway app - but it looks like someone high up has had some of the code redacted :) http://randywestergren.com/reverse-engineering-the-subway-an... Functionally, it looks like Cu…

Even if the transaction itself is tokenized, CurrentC controls the metadata and can allow MCX retailers access to that database after the fact. Apple on the other hand doesn't offer that type of access to anyone outside the company (if they store it at all).

More secure payment systems like CurrentC also employ tokenization to enhance user privacy and security throughout the payment process. This means that merchants are never given an actual bank account number, instead they are given a one-time use token that can be redeemed by a payment processor as if it was a valid bank account number.

Re: Hands on with Apple Pay Competitor CurrentC

#48

Post by pdpi » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 12:36 AM UTC

macavity23 wrote: post #40

DaveWalk wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not an Apple Pay user -- is their privacy policy any good? Does it not collect metadata? The article highlights CurrentC's brazen lack of privacy. From their policy: > We share your information across our network of merchants and with our third party service providers. MCX may share...To third-party analytic providers and advertising partners to help us deliver, track and analyze the operations and effectiveness…

Apple Pay's privacy is much better. AIUI: Apple knows nothing about your cards (they are all encrypted on-device), and nothing about your transaction except that there was A transaction (since Apple just sees a token that gets passed from you to the card provider). The merchant doesn't see your real cc number, just a one-use token. So they can't track you unless you choose to add a loyalty card. The card provider see…

> The merchant doesn't see your real cc number, just a one-use token

It's worth noting that the token is one-per-vendor, rather than one-per-payment. This is what allows TFL to match your tap-in to your tap-out on the London Underground, and what allows them to apply daily/weekly capping on fares.

Re: Hands on with Apple Pay Competitor CurrentC

#49

Post by PhantomGremlin » Fri, Nov 06, 2015, 5:57 AM UTC

Veratyr wrote: post #18

In Australia retailers have supported NFC in the form of Visa's payWave and Mastercard's PayPass for years now and I've got to say, it's fantastic compared to the experience in the US. Walk into a supermarket/retailer/cinema/restaurant in Melbourne and payment is as simple as waving your card at the terminal. If the purchase is less than ~$100 you don't need to enter a PIN and don't need to sign anything (we outlawed…

Most fast food places don't accept it

Perhaps adoption varies by region, or perhaps you haven't tried many places. In the Portland Oregon area, McDonalds, Panera, Subway, and Jamba Juice accept Apple Pay.[1]

signatures are still being retained as "authentication"

Yeah, that's way beyond stupid.

[1] Edit: couldn't resist, thought of this too late. Googling seems non-definitive about whether a certain other fast food place accepts Apple Pay. So I'll steal a line from Vincent Vega and say: "I dunno, I didn't go into Burger King."