Shoppers exit a Wal-Mart store in Casselberry, Florida. REUTERS/Joe Skipper Wal-Mart and Apple are in a bit of a tussle over Apple Pay, Apple's mobile payment system on the iPhone 6.

Wal-Mart is a leader of the Merchant Customer Exchange, a group of merchants working on their own mobile payment system.

Wal-Mart is not accepting Apple Pay right now. Members of MCX, including Rite Aid and CVS, shut down support for Apple Pay after a few days of accepting it, most likely out of a contractual obligation to MCX to use only MCX's mobile payment solution.

MCX's alternative to Apple Pay is called CurrentC. It has been in development since 2012, and it is a much clunkier solution. The user has to open the CurrentC app, then use a camera to scan a QR code, which is a boxy, bar code type of thing. Or, the user unlocks the phone, opens the app, then has a QR code generated that gets scanned by the retailer.

After we wrote about CurrentC earlier, a Wal-Mart PR rep reached out.

During a back-and-forth, we asked why Wal-Mart didn't accept Apple Pay, which is a pretty elegant solution to mobile payments. An iPhone owner simply holds his or her phone to a payment terminal, then uses his or her fingerprint to confirm payment.

Here's what we were told:

There are certainly a lot of compelling technologies being developed, which is great for the mobile-commerce industry as a whole. Ultimately, what matters is that consumers have a payment option that is widely accepted, secure, and developed with their best interests in mind. MCX member merchants already collectively serve a majority of Americans every day. MCX’s members believe merchants are in the best position to provide a mobile solution because of their deep insights into their customers’ shopping and buying experiences.

Our emphasis is added in there. These are mega corporations fighting for billions of dollars — Apple, the banks, Wal-Mart, etc. — so it's hard to know whom to really trust.

But we would trust that Apple is working with consumers in mind.

And we would guess that Wal-Mart is less concerned about consumers and more concerned with eliminating the 2% fee that comes with purchases by credit card. CurrentC bypasses credit-card fees, which will save Wal-Mart money in the long run.

In fact, Ron Shevlin, a retail banking analyst, says he asked former Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott why MCX could succeed when so many other consortia had failed. Scott's answer tells you a lot about CurrentC, and MCX. He said: "I don’t know that it will, and I don’t care. As long as Visa suffers."