Last night my wife watched a great BBC documentary about grizzly bears. I caught some of it, and two facts fascinated me most: (a) grown-up bears, causing serious damage to each other, kept fighting for a spot on the river waterfall during salmon run, although thousands of fishes could be caught easily anywhere at that place; and (b) male bears would eat grizzly cubs just because cubs are an easy prey, and also would not let - "just because I can" - female bears, starving to death, catch fish thus, potentially, causing self-extinction.

The following phrase was used as the main explanation of their behavior - brawn over brains.

Gemalto has now confirmed some details of their deal with MCX, the US consortium that represents top US retailers (who command almost 75% of the market share) - "earning a fee for every transaction, in addition to what appears to be a hosting fee".

Doesn't that remind you of the "interchange fee" - the very thing MCX was created to circumvent... There is a difference though: "Gemalto are not paid a percentage of the transaction, but are paid by transaction." However, "Gemalto could potentially earn hundreds of millions in fees over the course of the contract, though only if [the service] takes off with consumers." The service in question is payment system based on QR codes, and the Gemalto's role is to secure that service.

My head is buzzing with questions... 

Why was it Gemalto who got that role? Couldn't ISIS offer a better value? Couldn't card networks make a few steps forward and sweeten the pill for the retailers so that MCX wouldn't even happen in the first place? 

Mobile operators, issuers and card networks are afraid of being left out or left behind, when it comes to payments. Yet their fear of loss does not yet outweigh their desire for gain. That's a psychological "pathology": normally, twice as many people act to prevent loss than out of a desire for gain. Perhaps the smell of burning flesh is not strong enough yet...

As for the Gemalto's role, if it's pure TSM then "secure" should come from somewhere else. If there is indeed some "secure element" (SE) involved, what is it? It has to be SE which can be controlled by MCX, and not by mobile operators, issuers and handset OEMs.

As for QR codes, their popularity is waning, for many reasons. If anything, NFC stands a better chance of mass adoption for retail payments. Why? Because the choice of a payment method is ultimately driven by the consumers. QR codes do not offer consumers any new value compared to cards and cash. QR codes may solve some of the retailers' problems (or "problems"), but do consumer care?

In any case, kudos to Gemalto for being quick on their feet to use to their advantage the "my balls are bigger than yours" attitude of other players of that ecosystem. It's the classic case of shovel sellers making the most money during the gold rush...