Apple Pay Is Here And It's Going To Be Great: Why The Skeptics Have It Wrong [Forbes]

Excerpt from another Apple Pay reality check

"Best Buy and WalMart are saying they won’t play with Apple Pay. Why?

Two reasons, neither is good. First, they are burying their heads in the sand about NFC. Every merchant in the U.S. needs to support chip-based credit cards by October 2015 or face the liability risk of fraudulent transactions on their own (today, that risk is borne by issuing banks). It’s true that retailers can accept so called EMV cards without supporting NFC, but doing so entering the holiday season is going to be a decision those retailers will live to regret. Today, the speed of credit-card checkout is something we mostly take for granted and with chip cards, that’s about to change. Support for NFC isn’t about making Apple happy, it’s going to be about making customers happy.

The second reason some retailers are being obstinate is a quixotic endeavor to do mobile payments called MCX, for Merchant Customer Exchange. Gap, CVS, Exxon Mobil and a whole host of companies have agreed to collaborate on a payments solution whose advantage to consumers centers mostly on integrated loyalty-program features."

Apple Pay Is Here And It's Going To Be Great: Why The Skeptics Have It Wrong