Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

That flip—retailers exchanging cost and control for interchange—is what MCX is trying to reverse, and do it on the cheap through the magic of modern technology.

Let’s be realistic: MCX is driven by Finance types. It’s not about technology, nor is it particularly about mobile payments. If these guys could issue a single plastic card, complete with magstripe and embossed lettering, that could challenge Visa and MasterCard on interchange, MCX wouldn’t bother with mobile payments at all.

But let’s not dismiss the idea. Could MCX somehow re-create those massive 1960s card drops today, but using technology to cut the costs? To match the card brands’ saturation, MCX would have to get its payment system into the hands of at least one-quarter of the U.S. population. The payment system would have to be free to acquire and free to use. It would have to work as smoothly as the existing Visa/MasterCard system. And there would have to be a compelling reason for customers to switch.

Is it possible? Sure. Imagine a supersized, multi-retailer version of the Starbucks pay-with-phone approach. MCX could send a QR code to every U.S. smartphone, with instructions that the QR code could be scanned at POS to make purchases at select retailers and the total added to the customer’s mobile phone bill.

That would shove the cost of a billing system off on mobile operators, which would still want a transaction fee (but it might be a smaller bite than Visa/MasterCard). It would require getting the mobile operators on board, figuring out how to manage transaction security, and adding in-store signage and associate training.

Oh, and also spending millions on advertising to convince consumers that they really should flash their phones instead of pulling out a plastic card, which is the problem Google, ISIS and, in fact, everyone except Starbucks has failed to solve.

Of course, this ignores questions of whether such a mass delivery of QR codes is legal, what it would take to get mobile operators on board (especially after ISIS very pointedly decided not to get into the pay-by-phone billing business), and how to solve all the security, fraud and dispute issues that Visa/MasterCard have a 50-year head start on.

It’s possible to work around every one of those problems. All it takes is money.

Unless these retail chains are willing to throw a huge amount of money at this problem, they won’t catch Google, ISIS, the rapidly expanding PayPal or even the hesitant Apple in mobile payments. And if the purpose here is to get out from under interchange, they have to compete with Visa/MasterCard, which will involve even more money.

Money isn’t a perfect proxy for success in this game, but it’s close. And until MCX starts to commit some real money, it’s going nowhere.