JP Morgan to shut down Chase Pay app in early 2020
JP Morgan Chase has notified customers of its Chase Pay mobile payments solution that the service will soon be unavailable for in-store use. The bank began to notify existing customers of the change via email.
Starting in early 2020, Chase Pay customers will no longer be able to use the smartphone app at physical point-of-sale terminals, according to an announcement posted to the platform’s website. Chase plans to continue processing purchases made online and through supported apps.
This venture will soon be joining the US bank’s other shelved platforms this year. The demise of Chase Pay, at least in stores, ends a four-year experiment in mobile payments that began life in 2015 through a partnership with the Merchant Customer Exchange. At the time, Chase elected to integrate MCX’s now-defunct CurrentC platform to create a smartphone app that replaced credit cards with scannable barcodes.
CurrentC failed to gain traction and was ultimately killed off after a brief beta period in June 2016. Nine months later, JPMorgan snapped up the platform and other fintech assets from MCX.
“When we started this, it was four years ago – the payment space has changed a lot over the period of time and customer behaviour has changed,” says Chase Pay chief Eric Connolly. “A lot of merchants have shifted to buy online, pick up in store’ and have invested in their online presence and their apps.”
As competing payments platforms struggle to gain footing, Apple Pay continues to increase its slice of the market. Morgan Stanley analysts in July called Apple’s solution “the clear leader among app/phone-based digital wallets,” noting high year-over-year growth in online usage. While PayPal remains the transaction king in both number and volume, Apple Pay is slowly catching up.
