This article was published on October 28, 2014

Tim Cook calls CVS disabling Apple Pay and NFC a ‘skirmish’


Tim Cook calls CVS disabling Apple Pay and NFC a ‘skirmish’

At the WSJD Live conference Tim Cook addressed merchants disabling the NFC feature in their payment terminals in order to circumvent the use of Apple Pay.

Cook called the ongoing issue a “skirmish” and indicated that he believed that it’ll be customers that will decide which payment service retailers will end up supporting. Of course it helps that Apple activated 1 million cards in the first 72 hours according to Cook.

“In the long arc of time you’re only relevant as a merchant if your customers love you,” Cook said.

Retailers CVS and Rite Aid have already moved to block both Apple Pay and Google Wallet because the retailers have their own QR-code based payment system, CurrentC which will launch next year.

Wal-Mart and Best Buy are also CurrentC partners.

While NFC and Google Wallet have been around for a while, Apple Pay has recently supercharged the use of alternative payment process. Cook says it has to do with Apple making payments easy, secure and private.

Don’t miss: iPod Classic was killed because because Apple couldn’t get the parts ‘anywhere on Earth’

Image: Tim Cook at WWDC 2014

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