The Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX), a consortium of 58 major U.S. retailers whose mobile payment network will take on the new Apple Pay early in 2015, today held a hastily-organized news conference to address questions about a hack that pilfered consumer email addresses.

MCX CEO Dekkers Davison argued that the group was targeted because it was “challenging the status quo” with its mobile payment service, dubbed CurrentC, which largely circumvents credit card companies’ profitable transaction fees. “When you poke at a large ecosystem, you should expect attacks,” said Davison. “None of this comes as a surprise.”

The 30-minute conference call was in response to an admission earlier in the day by MCX that an unknown number of email addresses had been lifted by hackers.

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