It is one thing to prefer QR codes for mobile payments. It is wholly another thing to actively shut down NFC payment readers. But that appears to be what Best Buy, 7-Eleven and other members of QR-centric Merchant Customer Exchange, known as MCX, the group of retailers — which now numbers 70 and 110,000 locations — banding together to create a mobile payments network. According to Computer World, retailers are literally pulling the plug on NFC: At a Best Buy store located in Harrisonburg, Va., a clerk confirmed that the ability to make NFC mobile payments and related smart card payments at its point-of-sale terminals had been turned off after a directive from the corporate level. A spokeswoman for Best Buy declined to comment. At one large 7-Eleven store also in the area, a clerk said some of the mobile payment point-of-sale technology had been removed from some checkout counters. … A corporate spokeswoman said the 7-Eleven app does not currently support mobile payments, but said the app — available for iOS, Android and Windows Phone — does allow customers to redeem coupons and offers by using a barcode on the app that is read by a barcode scanner at [...]
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