MCX CEO Dekkers Davidson has left the retailer-led consortium to “pursue other opportunities” in the same week it was announced that founder member Best Buy will roll out support for rival mobile payments service Apple Pay later this year.
Financial services and payment industry veteran Brian Mooney will stand in as the company’s interim CEO. Mooney was most recently CEO and a board member of Bank of America Merchant Services and a previous chief financial officer, and later president, of First Data Merchant Services.
“Brian is a proven leader who has spent a substantial portion of his career at the forefront of payment technology, processing and acquisition,” says the consortium.
“He is the right leader for MCX now; talented, experienced, consumer-focused and fully prepared to help MCX and its hard-working employees deliver on the company’s enormous potential and vision.”
“We appreciate the contributions Dekkers has made to MCX in helping establish the foundation for the company’s growth and success,” MCX adds. “We wish him well in his new endeavors.”
“MCX was created to capitalize on a tremendous opportunity for consumers, and I look forward to taking the company through the next exciting phase of bringing CurrentC to the market,” said Mooney.
“MCX has a talented team in place, backed by the determination and resources of many of the world’s largest and most successful merchants. Building on that foundation, we’re focused on making CurrentC the consumer preferred mobile payments app.”
MCX’s Kristin Parran Faulder meanwhile told Cnet that “today’s news has nothing to do with yesterday’s news,” referring to Best Buy’s adoption of Apple Pay, and the consortium also confirmed to NFC World yesterday that it will launch its CurrentC mobile wallet in an unspecified “mid-sized market” this summer.
MCX has in the past attracted criticism for appearing to lock out rival mobile payment platforms. Consortium members Rite Aid and CVS accepted Apple Pay at launch but then stopped accepting NFC payments of any type within days, while a statement on MCX’s website asserts that “when merchants choose to work with MCX, they choose to do so exclusively.”
In a statement seen by NFC World yesterday, however, MCX suggested it has a more relaxed stance, declaring “as we have stated in the past, we are of the firm belief that there needs to be at least two to three major players within the mobile payments ecosystem for it to succeed.”
Next: Visit the NFCW Expo to find new suppliers and solutions