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Card.io - fast and easy mobile credit card scanning

card.io

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Re: Card.io - fast and easy mobile credit card scanning

#11

Post by https403 »

socmoth wrote: post #8

(Full disclosure, I'm a stock holder in Square) There are two good reasons Square doesn't do this that I can think of off the top of my head. First, CNP vs CP card processing rates. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_not_present_transaction Every credit card has the CC number encoded in to the back of the card, but in addition to that, it has a couple bytes of extra information. That extra information qualifies the me…

Also did you notice its 15¢ per scan!! I believe it will add on to the 10¢-15¢ + percentage merchants have to pay to the processor per Transaction.

Re: Card.io - fast and easy mobile credit card scanning

#13

Post by socmoth »

mmettler wrote: post #10

Hi gang, this is Mike from card.io. socmoth, CrazedGeek, and tbgvi are right that this is considered a CNP transaction and rates are higher. However, our focus is on mobile developers, not retail merchants. By taking friction out of the mobile checkout flow for those developers (because customers don't have to type out their cc number), conversions are higher, and thus revenues are higher. Regarding the user experien…

CardMuch, Checks are both examples of me taking a picture of something I own (check, biz card) using my own cell phone. Card.io is someone else taking a picture of my credit card, using their cell phone. In the first two examples, I have control and ownership. In the last example, I have ownership (of the data/card) but no control of the software.

Anything that increases conversions is great! Best of luck! I look forward to seeing it in the wild. In fact, are there any merchants in SF I can watch use it yet?

Re: Card.io - fast and easy mobile credit card scanning

#14

Post by socmoth »

https403 wrote: post #11
socmoth wrote: post #8

(Full disclosure, I'm a stock holder in Square) There are two good reasons Square doesn't do this that I can think of off the top of my head. First, CNP vs CP card processing rates. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_not_present_transaction Every credit card has the CC number encoded in to the back of the card, but in addition to that, it has a couple bytes of extra information. That extra information qualifies the me…

Also did you notice its 15¢ per scan!! I believe it will add on to the 10¢-15¢ + percentage merchants have to pay to the processor per Transaction.

Yeah, this matters way more for transactions less than 5 dollars where it starts to be a large %. If you go to 100 dollar range, it doesn't matter at all. The 10-15 cents just means they are looking for people who sell big things, not coffee shops.

Re: Card.io - fast and easy mobile credit card scanning

#16

Post by StavrosK »

socmoth wrote: post #13
mmettler wrote: post #10

Hi gang, this is Mike from card.io. socmoth, CrazedGeek, and tbgvi are right that this is considered a CNP transaction and rates are higher. However, our focus is on mobile developers, not retail merchants. By taking friction out of the mobile checkout flow for those developers (because customers don't have to type out their cc number), conversions are higher, and thus revenues are higher. Regarding the user experien…

CardMuch, Checks are both examples of me taking a picture of something I own (check, biz card) using my own cell phone. Card.io is someone else taking a picture of my credit card, using their cell phone. In the first two examples, I have control and ownership. In the last example, I have ownership (of the data/card) but no control of the software. Anything that increases conversions is great! Best of luck! I look for…

It seems to me that all this app does is OCR your name/number/date, instead of having you type it in. I'm sure there will be some users who will be wary of it, but it's not like it can get any more info than you would type into a game or whatnot.

Of course, I'm not sure how this is useful, since I understand that in-app purchases need to be tied to the App Store account, but it might be more useful for Android.

Re: Card.io - fast and easy mobile credit card scanning

#17

Post by mmettler »

socmoth wrote: post #13
mmettler wrote: post #10

Hi gang, this is Mike from card.io. socmoth, CrazedGeek, and tbgvi are right that this is considered a CNP transaction and rates are higher. However, our focus is on mobile developers, not retail merchants. By taking friction out of the mobile checkout flow for those developers (because customers don't have to type out their cc number), conversions are higher, and thus revenues are higher. Regarding the user experien…

CardMuch, Checks are both examples of me taking a picture of something I own (check, biz card) using my own cell phone. Card.io is someone else taking a picture of my credit card, using their cell phone. In the first two examples, I have control and ownership. In the last example, I have ownership (of the data/card) but no control of the software. Anything that increases conversions is great! Best of luck! I look for…

Thanks! We're working with mobile app developers, not retailers or physical merchants. So, instead of typing in your card number into a purchase form, you'll just scan your card from your own phone. We'll have more info about developer partners soon!

Re: Card.io - fast and easy mobile credit card scanning

#18

Post by frederickcook »

socmoth wrote: post #8

(Full disclosure, I'm a stock holder in Square) There are two good reasons Square doesn't do this that I can think of off the top of my head. First, CNP vs CP card processing rates. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_not_present_transaction Every credit card has the CC number encoded in to the back of the card, but in addition to that, it has a couple bytes of extra information. That extra information qualifies the me…

When I first saw this, I had a different use-case in mind, where a person would just take a picture of their own credit card for an in-app purchase, instead of a vendor using it to accept money from another person. (Hence the focus on developers.)

If you AB tested giving someone a screen where they put in their credit card number, or a screen where they just took a picture of it, you might find that people are more willing to take a picture. People are probably more comfortable with a photo of their credit card being taken on their own phone than someone else's phone. To the app, both of these are CNP transactions.

Re: Card.io - fast and easy mobile credit card scanning

#19

Post by mmettler »

jvandenbroeck wrote: post #15

Looks pretty cool, but wouldn't apple screw you? I don't think they'll like this, they want users to buy with the app store.

card.io shouldn't be used for in-app purchases (Apple's StoreKit works quite well there), but for mobile commerce: selling goods, travel purchases, daily deal sites, local services, and the like. These are all places where commerce is taking place outside of the App Store.

(edited to add that this is Mike from card.io)

Re: Card.io - fast and easy mobile credit card scanning

#20

Post by marcamillion »

This looks awesome. One thing I could see becoming an issue is in your best case scenario.

Say things are wildly successful and people come to expect that merchants will be taking a pic of your credit card with their phone. So you easily hand over your card to some random person to take a pic of it - assuming they are using Card.io.

However, what is to prevent nefarious people from just taking a pic with their own app or their own camera ?

So what would be good would be if there is some way to indicate (quickly) to the cardholder that the user is actually using Card.io to take the pic, rather than the Camera app - so they are not paranoid about people stealing their numbers.

Maybe turning the flash light red (is that even possible?) or something subtle that is a unique indicator that Card.io is being used and not some other app.

With Square, it is that little dongle - although I know that once Square gets big enough and the incentive gets large enough for people to create knock-offs of that dongle, I think it's much harder than say using a Camera.

Otherwise, awesome app.

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