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cards with me, but prefer not to use them in these situa-
Insider’sreport tions for fear fraudsters might be lurking around the card
terminal.)
on payments: As the server picked up the cards, she spotted my Discover

card and said, "I'm sorry, we don't take this card." Several
heads turned in my direction, and one friend asked
incredulously, "You use Discover? Don't you have a Visa
or Mastercard?"

Challenging payments Around the same time Sears introduced Discover, Mobil
Oil Corp. (now ExxonMobil) introduced a proprietary
credit card with a debit feature. Cardholders authorized
status quo not for debits against their checking accounts, and Mobil would
collect the money through the automated clearing house
(ACH). I had one of those cards, too, and appreciated that
faint of heart it was like paying with cash even when I lacked cash on
hand. Plus, clearing payments through the ACH allowed

By Patti Murphy for two to three days of collection float on that cash.
ProScribes Inc. More recently a consortium of large retailers (Walmart,
CVS and BestBuy among them) tried to launch a mobile
he payments landscape is littered with failed payment network, CurrentC, in an attempt to sidestep
attempts by nonbanks to establish themselves interchange and compete with the likes of Apple Pay. But
as the newest way for consumers and business- after several years, the consortium (known as the Merchant
T es to pay. Perhaps the most obvious of these is Customer Exchange, or MCX) threw in the towel. MCX
the Discover card, which was launched with much fanfare sold its technology to Chase, the commercial banking arm
in the mid-1980s by Sears Roebuck and Co. of JPMorgan Chase & Co., which now uses it to undergird
its Chase Pay digital wallet and mobile payment app.
At the time, Sears was one of the largest retailers in Amer- Most fintechs can't go it alone
ica. The move into financial services – in addition to Dis-
cover, Sears also owned Dean Witter Reynolds Inc., a retail While banks are not technology companies, many
stock brokerage – was seen by many as the opening salvo understand the potential value of technology innovations
in an assault on banks' position as gatekeepers to payment and possess the financial resources required to pursue
systems. Within a decade, Sears discovered that financial them. "When we think about 'fintech,' we go through
services generally, and pay-
ment services in particular,
were a far cry from retail-
ing, and faced with declin-
ing performance in its core
business, retailing, Sears ex-
ited financial services.

While Discover has emerged
as a competitive credit card
brand, it lacks the kind
of acceptance (and some
would say panache) Mas-
tercard and Visa enjoy. Re-
cently, I was dining with a
group of friends, and when
the bill came we each threw
a credit card on the table
and asked our server to split
the tab eight ways. I contrib-
uted the only credit card in
my wallet, a Discover card.
(I had two Visa-logoed debit

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