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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

#21

Post by ninwa »

frederickcook wrote: post #18
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 w…

That was my initial thought too. Instead of having to type all of your information using a tiny keyboard or on-screen one, you just snap a picture. I suppose, though, that most online markets allow you to save your information and the problem really isn't that big after the first entry. Something like this is kind of neat, but nothing new or novel. OCR has been good enough to do this for a long time.

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

#22

Post by rottencupcakes »

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…

> The other reason is based on UX. It feels really weird to have someone take a picture of your credit card using their cell phone. The apps that use this technology might be doing anything with that image.

To be fair, any company that gets my credit card number (restaurants, Walmart, Amazon, every random e-shop on the internet) could be doing anything with my credit card, so this concern isn't exactly new or very scary.

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

#23

Post by timjahn »

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…

I may be wrong, but I believe the premise behind card.io is that you buy something in an app (a good old in app purchase), and instead of typing in all your credit card info, you simply take a picture of your credit card for payment.

Doesn't seem that card.io is trying to get merchants to use this as a Square replacement at this point.

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

#24

Post by richcollins »

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…

Otoh, more people should take credit cards!

We should be moving away from credit cards. They are becoming an archaic technology.

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

#25

Post by josharian »

jarin wrote: post #3

This looks even smoother than Square, but I'm curious to see how it handles credit cards with the silvery ink worn off of the numbers, or cards with complex graphics on the front.

This is Josh, CTO of card.io. Those are definitely challenges, but we've put quite a lot of effort into handling exactly those sorts of problems, and we do pretty well with them (if I say so myself).

One interesting tidbit on this front, from someone who spends a lot of time admiring credit cards: Only some cards have silvery ink on top of the numbers. Some others have silvery plastic underneath the main ink layer (usually part of the card's overall graphic design), so the numbers become more silvery with wear, not less. And yet others have no silver anywhere at all. TAANSTAFL. :)

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

#26

Post by timerickson »

rottencupcakes wrote: post #22
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…

> The other reason is based on UX. It feels really weird to have someone take a picture of your credit card using their cell phone. The apps that use this technology might be doing anything with that image. To be fair, any company that gets my credit card number (restaurants, Walmart, Amazon, every random e-shop on the internet) could be doing anything with my credit card, so this concern isn't exactly new or very sc…

To you, no.

Consumers have an irrational understanding that swiping a credit card is safe. Taking a picture of it is likely the sketchiest action a merchant could take, in the eyes of the average uneducated consumer.

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

#27

Post by davidedicillo »

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…

I think you are missing the point. This is not meant to be used like Square is. This is meant to be embedded into other application that accepts in app purchases that can't be done with the In App system provided by Apple.

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

#28

Post by mmettler »

marcamillion wrote: post #20

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 ap…

This is Mike from card.io. That's a great suggestion - we'll be watching the user experience very closely and will give your idea some thought!

Based on developer interest, a common use case will be scanning your card from an app on your own phone - in that case, you're scanning your own card, and you're in control. But this us a great suggestion for retail usage.

Thanks!

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