Chase Launches 'Chase Pay' Payments Service to Compete with Apple Pay

JPMorgan Chase & Co today announced plans to launch its own payments service to compete with Apple Pay, reports Re/code. The news comes courtesy of Chase CEO of Consumer and Community Banking, Gordon Smith, who announced "Chase Pay" at the Money20/20 payments conference in Las Vegas.

Chase Pay will work via QR code instead of over NFC, allowing customers to make purchases with their smartphones by showing a QR code to a cashier. If that sounds a lot like the MCX Consortium's upcoming CurrentC platform, it's because Chase is partnering up with MCX for its payments service.

The MCX Consortium, which promotes the QR-based CurrentC app and payments service, consists of collection of merchants like Walmart, Target, Sunoco, Kohl's, Best Buy, Rite Aid, CVS, Lowe's, Sears, Shell, Michaels, 7-Eleven, and more. Once available, CurrentC will be available as a payment option in all of these retail locations, as will Chase Pay.

In some of these stores, customers will be able to pay by showing a QR code within the Chase Pay app. In others, Chase customers will have to use Chase Pay inside MCX's own CurrentC app. It's not clear which of the MCX member retailers will support which method.

CurrentC has been in development for multiple years, giving Apple Pay an edge with its earlier release timeline. While most MCX members were originally subjected to an exclusivity agreement, that has since expired, leading several MCX Consortium members to offer support for Apple Pay. Chase itself also supports Apple Pay, allowing Chase credit cards and debit cards to be used with Apple's payments service.

CurrentC and Chase Pay are both slated to launch in 2016.