Retailer-Backed MCX Picks a Banker As CEO To Guide the Mobile-Payments Network

Nearly a year after announcing itself, Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) took another step toward achieving its goal of developing a cutting-edge mobile-payments system with the appointment of Dekkers L. Davidson as chief executive.

Thursday’s announcement of Davidson, former managing director at credit card issuer Barclaycard U.S., as CEO comes hard on the heels of news that Fidelity National Information Services Inc. (FIS) will provide transaction processing for MCX’s yet-to-be launched network owned by some of the nation’s largest retailers. Davidson, whom MCX did not make available for interviews, is no stranger to mobile payments, overseeing bPay, Barclaycard U.S.’s m-payments pilot in Wilmington and Newark, Del.

Dallas-based MCX’s board of directors released a statement saying “it was imperative for MCX to select a CEO who has a strong passion for the customer, who understands the emerging mobile-payments industry, and who also aligns with the key objectives of MCX. In Dekkers, we have found someone uniquely qualified for this role.”

Before joining Barclaycard, Davidson headed Oliver Wyman’s U.S. mobile-consulting practice and served as the chief executive of c3, a multicarrier online retailer of mobile devices and services, and Cetacean Networks, a data-networking startup. Davidson also brings telecom-industry experience to the table, leading Sprint PCS’s startup mobile operation in New England during the mid to late 1990s. Prior to that, he served as regional president of Rogers Cantel, Canada’s leading mobile carrier.

“Davidson has a lot of insight into mobile and its challenges and is familiar with the key operators in the mobile ecosystem. He does not come to the job blindly,” says Steve Mott, principal of Stamford, Conn.-based consultancy BetterBuyDesign. “If anyone can turn [MCX] into a viable mobile business, it’s Dekkers.”

With its CEO now in place, speculation is heating up about when MCX, which merchants conceived with the intent of creating a mobile wallet that does not add to their cost of accepting payments and in turn will win broad support among retailers, will launch a test. MCX, however, remains mum on that point and a company spokesperson says that a consumer brand will have to be introduced before a pilot is announced. “The consumer-facing brand will not be MCX,” says the spokesperson.

Payments experts see Davidson’s most immediate challenge as creating consensus among MCX’s broad base of retailer owners, many of whom are direct competitors, not only on a technology platform, but also on the network’s rules and regulations. MCX counts such retail and petroleum powerhouses as Wal-Mart Stores Inc., 7-Eleven Inc., CVS/pharmacy, Lowe’s, Publix Super Markets, Inc., Kohl’s Department Stores, Shell Oil Products US, and Sunoco Inc. among its members.

“One of the challenges of any consortium is uniting members in purpose, but it can be done, as Visa and MasterCard proved [in the bank-card world],” says payments consultant Todd Ablowitz, president of Centennial, Colo.-based Double Diamond Group.

Uniting members will require Davidson to create a mobile-payment platform that brings value to consumers without undermining MCX’s mission. But it also means he will have to successfully extend an olive branch to mid-size and small banks to show MCX can be a partner in developing loyalty and gift card applications for mobile wallets that consumers will enthusiastically embrace, according to Mott. “With his background, Dekkers can reach across the table to banks and the other players in the mobile world to initiate rational, non-political discussions,” he says.

Davidson summed up the significance of his appointment in a prepared statement, saying: “The strength of the customer experience, the breadth of acceptance, and the quality and security of technology the MCX solution will offer provides MCX with a historic opportunity to improve the shopping and paying experience for customers.”

If nothing else, the appointment of Davidson signals that MCX is indeed serious about playing the winning hand in the nascent mobile-wallet space, Ablowitz says.