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Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks

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Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks

#121

Post by ttoinou »

soared wrote: post #2

Super interesting read! I work in payments for context and see tons of different payment methods every day. People tend to find a payment method they like, and really only ever use that one method. It’s very hard to get someone to switch - even if an alternative is better. It’s just so ingrained to swipe that same card, click the same autofill button, etc. Digital wallets did somehow over come this, and those would b…

The best players to disrupt Visa Mastercard duopoly would rather be a consortium of payment processors such as Shopify / Stripe / Google Pay / Apple Pay and banks taking in sandwhich Visa and Mastercard (where the money is stored, where the money is spent)

Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks

#123

Post by pbhjpbhj »

SJC_Hacker wrote: post #61
ceejayoz wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A lot of shops, restaurants, and other establishments have stopped accepting cash, even if it's illegal to do so (legal tender etc). No. This is a misunderstanding of legal tender. https://www.federalreserve.gov/faqs/currency_12772.htm "There is no federal statute mandating that a private business, a person, or an organization must accept currency or coins as payment for goods or services. Private businesses are fr…

> egal tender only applies to debts. I used to think that was true, but try paying parking fines, etc. with pennies. Legal tender has never been challenged in court to my knowledge

In the UK the definition of legal tender includes a limit on the use of small denominations.

Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks

#124

Post by sokoloff »

poopsmithe wrote: post #20

I'm calling it-- 5 years and this will be vaporware. We live in a world where you have to 1) compete with VISA, Mastercard and 2) compete with Bitcoin Lightning Network.

I would bet more transactions are done in exchange for literal home-grown vegetables this month than over Bitcoin Lightning Network, yet no one claims a payment method needs to compete with bartered vegetables.

Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks

#126

Post by quesomaster9000 »

lelanthran wrote: post #118
soared wrote: post #2

Super interesting read! I work in payments for context and see tons of different payment methods every day. People tend to find a payment method they like, and really only ever use that one method. It’s very hard to get someone to switch - even if an alternative is better. It’s just so ingrained to swipe that same card, click the same autofill button, etc. Digital wallets did somehow over come this, and those would b…

> Tough problem. You need a Jony Ive on your team to help solve it. I don't think so. A Jony Ive will not be in a position to solve the actual problem - what use is a non-universal payment mechanism to consumers and to retailers? I read the linked page and don't see answers to the main adoption problem: how is the purchaser supposed to pay? 1. Purchaser has to download the app? Okay, but purchaser already has a few e…

I'd argue that the problem is that QR codes shouldn't be an 'app' problem, and yes there's a chicken-egg problem with PoS terminals verifying incoming bank payments but that's a separate issue.

If you want to do account-to-account payments you can show the customer the account/routing number, amount & invoice ID - but obviously that's high friction and the customer needs to login to their account and send a payment with lots of manual data entry.

Making yet another app, adding a financial intermediary, requiring you to link your bank account - these aren't solving the friction points.

We already have bank apps, when I scan a QR code in an industry-wide format it should ask me or confirm which bank app to open and pre-fill all the payment information.

So from my perspective, the problem is that FedNow in the US, and Open Banking in the UK - they could have just dictated "Banks must support EPC QR, or EMV QR code scanning and deep-links", and QR code payments would happen very quickly - even with NFC/RFID you can do passive scanning to achieve the same thing.

* Choose Account * Confirm details * Press send

That's about as easy as you can get for push payments, with a real industry-wide standard for communicating payment intents via NFC/QR. But both FedNow and UK OpenBanking are structured in a way which requires friction, and onerous regulation, through their clunky APIs - meaning you can't actually solve that problem on your own.

Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks

#127

Post by viraptor »

bruce511 wrote: post #5

When you start at the wrong premise, you typically end up in the wrong place. The premise is that credit cards (visa / Mastercard) is broken. When actually it works really well. For starters it works everywhere. Online. IRL. In my home country, in foreign lands. Secondly it costs the consumer nothing. The cost goes to the merchant. If anything the customer gets rewards. Merchants might pay 3%, (and ultimately yes, th…

Sounds like one place where it's broken is the morality policing. If tech can succeed due to usage in porn, maybe Zenobia can too? Then move to services like onlyfans, then try all the other creators who also have problems with fees (like the revolt when patreon tried to raise them)?

Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks

#128

Post by closewith »

ttoinou wrote: post #121
soared wrote: post #2

Super interesting read! I work in payments for context and see tons of different payment methods every day. People tend to find a payment method they like, and really only ever use that one method. It’s very hard to get someone to switch - even if an alternative is better. It’s just so ingrained to swipe that same card, click the same autofill button, etc. Digital wallets did somehow over come this, and those would b…

The best players to disrupt Visa Mastercard duopoly would rather be a consortium of payment processors such as Shopify / Stripe / Google Pay / Apple Pay and banks taking in sandwhich Visa and Mastercard (where the money is stored, where the money is spent)

Pix, UPI, etc have definitively shown that Governments are the best players to disrupt the Visa/Mastercard duopoly.

Re: Zenobia Pay – A mission to build an alternative to high-fee card networks

#129

Post by dewey »

poopsmithe wrote: post #20

I'm calling it-- 5 years and this will be vaporware. We live in a world where you have to 1) compete with VISA, Mastercard and 2) compete with Bitcoin Lightning Network.

You don't have to wait that long, they shut down. "We realized that we were back at square one, and with our product so far ahead of our sales, decided to pivot away from payments entirely."

https://zenobiapay.com/blog/open-source-payments

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