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Introducing Snapcash

blog.snapchat.com

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Re: Introducing Snapcash

#191

Post by JonoBB »

jordanthoms wrote: post #112

Meanwhile, everybody outside the US is trying to figure out how it's taken so long for easy person-to-person payments to happen there. Here in NZ, you've been able to pay directly to someone's bank account number for free for as long as I can remember, and my bank introduced payments to mobile numbers, facebook accounts, and email addresses 3 years ago. (Oh and it's totally safe to broadcast your account number to ev…

Even more to the point - Kenya and Tanzania have had M-Pesa (which allows payments and transfers via mobile phones) since 2007 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa). Note that this is not necessaries smart phone stuff - just a plain 'ol mobile phone with text capabilities will do.

Also, I was visiting that region in 2006 and was struggling to add some phone credits to my phone that I had just purchased. Some random guy in the queue offered to send me credits from his phone, and I was pretty much blown away with how easy it was.

Re: Introducing Snapcash

#192

Post by jordanthoms »

tomp wrote: post #188
Negitivefrags wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone else from NZ I would like to second this. We got a US bank account for our company and I was surprised how archaic the US banking industry is. Another thing very interesting in NZ/AU is EFTPOS. EFTPOS is like the credit card system only with no transaction costs. Any shop in NZ/AU will take it. The original business model for EFTPOS was that the user pays a fixed charge per transaction. I think it was some…

> Which to be fair is what the actual cost of a purely electronic transaction should be). When you pay with PayPal/Visa/MasterCard, you're not paying for the electricity or the transaction, you're paying for fraud insurance. I wonder, how does EFTPOS handle fraud, and who's responsible for it?

I'm not sure, because I've never had a fraudulent transaction with it and never heard of anyone who has. Probably because it's point of sale, card present only. (Fraud with ATM withdrawals is an issue, but that's the bank's problem).

Re: Introducing Snapcash

#193

Post by jarek »

juanplusjuan wrote: post #114
david_shaw wrote: post #22

I think the primary challenge is convincing users that it's secure. Snapchat has a relatively poor reputation in security (whether that's deserved or not), and everyone I know just uses Venmo. Venmo has Facebook integration, so if you're Facebook friends, it's really easy to send money. It seems like integrating into a platform that's supposed to be ethereal is a weird fit, but who knows -- maybe it'll catch on.

Seems like Venmo is on a spree to win secure payments in the developed world. It has a few horses in the race: http://techcrunch.com/2014/11/04/dasher-teams-up-with-venmo-... At least Dasher has a solid team behind it (former director of mobile at Gilt et al). Not sure how I feel about Snapchat given their security record.

s/developed world/USA/

Signed, Paym user

Re: Introducing Snapcash

#194

Post by jarek »

Robadob wrote: post #151

In the UK one of the banks (Barclays) has setup a mobile app PingIt for this same concept. Someone sent me money with it, had to sign up to receive it. Due to what I imagine is UK banking laws, a large amount of id/proof of address was required to fully register my account, so that I could also send money. To verify my address they send a snail mail letter out with a verification code, being a student away at univers…

Pingit is Barclays' implementation of a UK-wide system called Paym. If you already have a UK bank account and a UK mobile phone number, sending money with Paym to anyone who also has those things only requires the recipient's mobile number.

Re: Introducing Snapcash

#195

Post by freshfey »

david_shaw wrote: post #22

I think the primary challenge is convincing users that it's secure. Snapchat has a relatively poor reputation in security (whether that's deserved or not), and everyone I know just uses Venmo. Venmo has Facebook integration, so if you're Facebook friends, it's really easy to send money. It seems like integrating into a platform that's supposed to be ethereal is a weird fit, but who knows -- maybe it'll catch on.

The issue is just, 99% of the people who use Snapchat, probably don't use facebook anymore.

Re: Introducing Snapcash

#196

Post by company »

jordanthoms wrote: post #112

Meanwhile, everybody outside the US is trying to figure out how it's taken so long for easy person-to-person payments to happen there. Here in NZ, you've been able to pay directly to someone's bank account number for free for as long as I can remember, and my bank introduced payments to mobile numbers, facebook accounts, and email addresses 3 years ago. (Oh and it's totally safe to broadcast your account number to ev…

What are you talking about? You can send payments to others from most if not all banks (other than small / local banks probably).

Re: Introducing Snapcash

#197

Post by rokhayakebe »

kevando wrote: post #76
joshstrange wrote: post #44

I have been a long time user of Venmo and have tried to get a number of my friends on it but most of my friends consider entering their routing/account numbers (if they even know what those are...) into an app and waiting a couple days too much work. They even consider Square Cash too much of a hassle but I can see all of those same friends using Snapcash without issue. I consider Venmo to be the best in this space c…

I never found that to be an issue getting friends to sign up for Venmo. You don't need to enter any info to accept cash. It was getting them to realize this was cash and not some magic points (because they dont know what venmo is). Snapchat should kill it here because people already understand and trust (for the most part) Snapchat and this is just a new feature - not an entirely new service to learn.

this is just a new feature - not an entirely new service to learn

Capital.

Re: Introducing Snapcash

#199

Post by joshstrange »

Robadob wrote: post #149
joshstrange wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently I have been taking the approach of "I sent you $15 for XYZ on Venmo if you want it you need to signup" because it's one of the few ways I can get them to do it. I hate to hold their money hostage like that but if I don't there isn't a great way for me to give them money other than paying for them up to what I owe them the next time we hang out (which I am bound to forget). I agree, I feel like Snapchat/cash…

If I was every paying people money regularly, I always just found sending the money via bacs through online banking to be easiest.

I would do this if I lived in the UK but I live in the US where we only have ACH and even that's not really close to BACS.

Re: Introducing Snapcash

#200

Post by habosa »

kxo wrote: post #174
habosa wrote: post #124

Unless they have changed something under the hood I would NOT trust this service due to the insecure nature of the Snapchat API. There are many 3rd-party API clients for Snapchat that can access all parts of the API (send message, send picture, get picture, etc.). I even wrote one for Java. They are easily accessed from a console with a username/password combo. Considering how many password dumps are out there, it's…

How do you propose Snapchat, a company primarily producing a mobile application, prevent usage of its API? You act like someone can't (with your username and password) (automatically or otherwise) scrupulously transact on your behalf with PayPal. If you have the username/password - in a non-MFA system - you have access to everything.

True. One problem specific to Snapchat is that there are already a ton of 3rd party clients that users trusted with their username and password. That user/pass combo now suddenly has the potential for financial abuse without any new permissions. It's bad to add scope to previously granted authentication, especially when you're talking about finance.
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