Merchant Consumer Exchange (MCX) CEO Dekkers Davidson said that a recent attack on the email accounts of partipants in a beta program for its CurrentC mobile payments solution won’t hurt the company’s plans for a 2015 launch. 

MCX was formed by a group of major U.S. retailers here in the United States and has made news this week as member companies such as WalMart, Rite Aid and 7-Eleven have rejected the use of Apple Pay at their point of sale terminals. 

MCX held a press conference today to address a number of different reports about the attacks. 

Davidson said the attack was not on the CurrentC platform or app and that the problem only affected a small number of email accounts, many of them “dummy accounts” set up MCX for testing purposes. He added the MCX had experienced extensive hacking attacks over the past 7 to 8 days, something the company expected.  

Davidson denied reports that MCX member companies are forbidden by contract from leaving the joint venture. He also panned reports that MCX would fine member retailers that also accepted Apple Pay. 

“That’s simply not true,” Davidson said. “Merchants of MCX are free to make the best decisions for their customers as they see fit.” 

MCX is working with retailers to develop the CurrentC app, which will integrate things like coupons, loyalty cards and payments in a single app. 

Davidson declined to comment on how much member companies had invested in the effort.