Apple Pay and Google Wallet have met their biggest rivals yet, in the form of drugstores like CVS. According to a recent article from Venture Beat, CVS and Rite Aid have both refused to support the NFC-based mobile payment platforms from the two tech giants.

This news could represent a major problem for both Apple and Google as they attempt to move into the payment game. For one thing, Rite Aid and CVS are both major retailers where the virtual payment methods offered by Apple and Google could have come in handy for shoppers.

For another, Rite Aid and CVS are a part of a larger collective of retailers (called Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX) that is pushing its own mobile payment method. The technology is called “CurrentC” and would revolve around QR codes, mobile devices, and automated bank transactions to make payments. MCX retailers – a list that also includes the likes of Gap, Kmart, Sam’s Club, and others – support such a technology because it could help phase out credit cards. Retailers have to pay fees on credit card transactions.

It makes sense that MCX retailers would want to support their own mobile payment method, but that does not fully justify the decision to block Apple Pay or Google Wallet. For one thing, these NFC technologies are available now, while CurrentC will not be active until at least next year. For another, there is a possibility that these retailers could get in trouble for trying to formulate a monopoly of sorts on mobile payments, instead of letting free market competition naturally take its course.

The big losers here are the customers, though. Competition could naturally lead to mobile payment methods with better features and more security. As for CurrentC, there is a good chance that the MCX payment system could put both customers and retailers at risk. QR codes can be dangerous, because there is no way to tell exactly what they link to.

In other words, someone hoping to hack a retailer could present a QR code supposedly meant for a CurrentC payment, but actually linking to a virus. When scanned, the virus could then feasibly infect the retailer’s payment system and be used to steal customer payment information, a la last year’s Target credit card breach. MCX will have to be careful to protect against possibilities such as these.