Evan Schuman's StorefrontBacktalk

That’s not about to change without some real leadership. And it won’t come from any of the current offerings. Google and PayPal can’t move the needle. Apple and ISIS are afraid to try.

And it remains true that the only players in mobile payments who could make mobile payments work are big chains, whose finance guys have decided that their desire to dump interchange fees will magically overcome their own infighting and technical naïveté. Um, right.

Don’t forget, there was a time (several business plans ago) when ISIS, too, was going to do without Visa, MasterCard and interchange. The chains didn’t jump on board. Now ISIS is tied up with the card brands, just like the other big mobile-payment schemes.

Can anyone pull this situation out of the fire? Sure—big chains can, if they can make interchange relief a long-term goal instead of a first-rev requirement.

Starbucks has already shown that customers will use their phones to pay, so long as it gets them through the line faster. In France, McDonald’s has pushed the model a little farther forward by giving mobile users their own lane at the counter.

Those aren’t unique situations. Most retailers can figure out ways to get mobile-payment customers through the checkout ordeal faster, even it it’s just mimicking McDonald’s France and designating a special “mobile express” lane. That would require a little traffic-flow work and a lot of promotion, including an enthusiastic push from store managers and associates. Then again, it would be a lot cheaper than self-checkout was—no expensive new machines, just a dedicated lane.

Chains can make mobile payments happen by giving customers who use it a benefit: faster out the door. That means they really do control whether mobile payments can get any traction.

It also means the chains that jump in first will have real leverage with whatever mobile-payments schemes they’re feeding transactions to. Once they get that transaction stream going, those chains will have real power over Google, PayPal, Apple or ISIS because the chain could turn off the transaction stream with the flip of a switch. (That type of cutoff wouldn’t even have to irritate customers much—they could still use their phones to pay, the phones would just mimic contactless cards.)

And once those chains have sold mobile payments to customers—and convinced mobile-payments providers that the chains are in the driver’s seat—it would become much easier for a mobile-payment effort to try a non-Visa/MasterCard offering that, say, debited funds from a bank account directly instead of using a branded debit card. That would finally cut out the card brands’ interchange fee, delivering the relief that chains crave.

Even if it just provided competition to Visa and MasterCard, interchange-free payments would provide the first real competition to the card brands’ model in decades. It’s clear from the recent legal settlement that going to court isn’t going to put effective pressure on the card brands. That will have to come from a competitive threat. Without that, Visa and MasterCard have no reason to negotiate, much less deliver interchange relief.

But it can’t happen until someone gets mobile payments working—actually delivering transactions—first. And if chains don’t provide the leadership, who can?