Karen,
I was surprised you did not mention MCX. For me the agreement to participate in the MCX initiative has a lot to do with the unwillingness of Merchants to embrace NFC. It is interesting to note that those that have turned off NFC also are members of MCX. I also wonder what HCE has to do with the merchants willingness to embrace NFC. If it is a standard payment card transactions HCE is not something the merchant will even be aware of. It is the Issuer that benefits from no longer having to deal with the Mobile Network Operator or MNO.

One then also wonders if the consumer is interested in this idea of back to back cards or statements. Simply look at how Google works or Isis with the Amex Serve account. Google is the merchant of record on the statement for the card or account registered as the funding source. To keep track of where you use the Google Wallet requires the consumer monitor the statement associated with the Google or Serve account.

Is Apple the Black Swan, we shall see? For the migration to EMV the Black Swan was the attention the media gave the three data breaches.