Coin

> () Merchants will hate it since there is no physical imprint / swipe of the bank-issued card. This will lead to chargebacks in favor of the customer. So this alone kills this company/product.

Yeah I know right, this is why I can never buy anything online, oh wait.

> () Banks might change their terms forbidding customers to create digital copies / clones of their card. As per card holder agreements, if you (or Coin) has ever read one, you don't own your card. You're fully bound by the terms of the agreement.

The bank that does not enforce these agreements will have my business. Bring it on.

> () There is the issue of PCI-DSS compliance. They mention they're "in the process of earning" it but this is a lengthy, difficult and _costly_ process ($100 k). They're using a loophole to ensure consumer peace of mind but this won't last at all.

Every startup has to start somewhere.

> () Adding a card seems flawed. You're asked to take a picture of the physical card after swiping to "prevent fraud" ok but unless Coin uses some advanced image processing/OCR to validate the card with the swiped data, you can take a picture of any card. So big fail here.

I've used the camera to accurately scan my card data into 3 different apps in the past week.

> () Coin seems to access a cloud service. Another major reason that this simply isn't going to work. If you've paid any attention to the NSA situation within the past 6-months, ordinary/average consumers (not the HN crowd) are becoming weary of cloud/hosted service. Not to mention, Coin will never ever work outside of the US (or San Francisco for that matter).

Just... stop.

> () Most users are totally fine with credit cards and big wallets. It's actually empowering to them. I spoke to a guy who loves the fact that he has every color Amex card! So in essence, this is geared towards a micro-niche of tech savvy SF/NY/LA crowd.

You talked to one guy who loves that he has every color Amex card, and then came to this conclusion?

> () Selecting a card by tapping the button - great. What if the waiter taps the same button? Or someone you're paying does? So many issues with this button here.

I've had my card charged twice before, so what you are telling me is that the same thing that happened to me before might happen to me again? Thanks.

> () The obvious issue of losing Coin and losing everything. People like backups. It's a mindset.

You mean like how people lose their wallets?

> () Battery issues with digitizing a non-battery product (credit card). Be in no doubt that more than half of users will forget to charge their credit card (as if we don't have enough things to charge). So you'll see people having lunches and presenting a dead Coin. And since you don't have any plastic, well, now you're screwed.

So once every 2 years, I might have to ask my wife or a friend to pay for my meal at a restaurant, and I trade that for the convenience of not having to carry a wallet? Where do I sign up?

> Products are supposed to make life better, easier, more intuitive.

If everyone was using Coin, and then you introduced me to the concept of a wallet, it would be downright laughable.

I don't understand America's love for credit cards. They're unsafe, both for users and for merchants. PIN cards are safer, and they're much clearer about where the risks and responsibilities lie. Of course modern credit cards also support PIN, but I never see them used that way.

A more convenient way of handling credit cards is a useless idea to me. What we need is a safer and more reliable way to handle transactions. Preferably one that doesn't rely on politically motivated monopolists.

I wonder why the big US banks aren't on board with driving contacless NFC payments?

Commonwealth Bank, the largest bank in Australia is very soon releasing native Android NFC support and NFC style "smart tags" that you stick to the back of your iPhone.

https://www.commbank.com.au/personal/online-banking/commbank...

This pretty much eliminates the need for any kind of "card aggregation". I wonder how quickly other countries will follow suite?

I don't know much about PayWave and PayPass, but this actually sounds even less secure than credit cards. And it still relies on the big two. Sounds like a step in the wrong direction.

It's not about convenience, it's about security and reliability. That's the direction we need to take.

For those who don't know, the term "coffeeshop" in the Netherlands refers to places that sell cannabis. "café" is a regular café.