Google and Softcard (Isis)—Isis is a failed carrier-based system, doomed to continue failing; “And, now that Apple Pay has given NFC a new lease on life”? Rubbish. EMV/NFC, ubiquitous throughout the rest of the world, was coming very soon to the U.S., Apple Pay or no …

PayPal and Amex—You joke of course; Amex would not touch this clunker with a forty foot pole; besides Amex has an arrangement with “MasterPass” and “Visa Checkout”; Amex would need to get involved with the clunky “PreyPal” only if they had acquired a death wish; the reality is, now that the “MasterPass” and “Visa Checkout” applications are available, PayPal’s “best before” date is fast approaching …

Apple and Discover—Apple buying Discover Bank would be one way of Apple getting more directly into the banking/payments business, I suppose; but how many users use Discover/Diners cards? Very few. And how would that affect the current arrangement with MasterCard/Visa. And, “Discover’s 8 million merchants”—where did you get that figure from, given that there are only approximately nine million retailers in the U.S.?

Visa and Stripe—Why? Visa now has “Visa Checkout”; that’s all they need. “Stripe powers Apple Pay”—where did that come from? I somehow got the impression it was a white-label “MasterPass” that was underlying Apple Pay …

eBay and Pinterest—Forget eBay; that horse has died, and the carcass is starting to smell; someone should bury it …

Merchants and MCX—An absurd concept from the start; bound to be still born. With respect to Apple Pay, these merchants are simply cutting off their noses to spite their faces; there is no difference in cost between an Apple Pay transaction and a credit card transaction, but the MCX mob apparently think that they can beat the banks / MasterCard / Visa at their own game—good luck with that—the major merchants have already lost that battle once before in the 1970s, as I recall.

If the MCX mob don’t like “credit” card fees they can choose to accept only “debit” card transactions which carry only a nominal fee. The question then is, does Apple Pay enable such nominal-fee “debit” transactions, as on more expensive purchases the nominal discount fee the bank / MasterCard / Visa receive may be less than the 0.15% that the participating banks have agreed to pay Apple on credit card transactions? …

Regardless, any negative reaction to Apple Pay by merchants generally is based solely on their not wanting to upgrade their terminals to NFC-enabled equipment—which they are going to have to do anyway, unless they are prepared to accept the fraud risk on new EMV card transactions.