The moment this gets turned down by a merchant you visit frequently, there goes the magic. That means you'll have to keep your regular card in your wallet along with your Coin, and the whole value prop comes crashing down. It seems interesting as a novelty, but I'm not sure I'd pay $100 to play with the cool kids in this case.
Meet Coin (YC W13), a startup creating a universal credit card
171–180 of 182 posts
Re: Meet Coin (YC W13), a startup creating a universal credit card
#172This seems a great way to steal other people's credit cards. You can literally duplicate someone's card on your "coin". Now there's a super easy way for someone working in a restaurant to get your credit card information and sell it.
It's so easy to steal someone's credit card that I can name at least 10 people off the top of my head who have had it done, and I'm not even trying. I myself have had it happen twice. The good news is, you just cancel it, there's a paper trail to track the people who did it, and you have fraud protection.
All of that can be done better though when you get off the credit card rail, which is what I'm working on. tommy@thecityswig.com if you wanna talk
Re: Meet Coin (YC W13), a startup creating a universal credit card
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because it's not worth the cost. On the consumer side, chargebacks are easy. Credit card companies bear the brunt of the cost of fraud. They all have the incentive in the world to start rolling out chip and pin technology. The fact that they haven't probably demonstrates that the math doesn't work out.
It's actually the end merchant (seller) that bears the cost of fraud. So credit card companies have little incentive to fix this, beyond customer support costs. Say you sell a camera to someone using a stolen credit card. The real owner of the card gets his money back after doing a chargeback. The thief keeps the camera. The merchant loses a camera, the money, and gets a ding in his credit card merchant reputation.
Doesn't the merchant bear the cost of the fraud ONLY if they'r e using obsolete equipment?
Re: Meet Coin (YC W13), a startup creating a universal credit card
#174I just invented something similar. Though it only supports a maximum of 4 cards, at scale it would cost ~500x less. I call it "penny." Here's my prototype: http://imgur.com/49auKC4
I've seen card readers try to read from both sides of the card in case it's swiped on the wrong side - you might have some problems with those.
For compatibility, penny will offer a special adapter that will decrease interference with some card scanners.
You can purchase this compatibility adapter for $3.95 for 66 feet: http://www.amazon.com/Scotch-Electrical-75-Inch-66-Foot-0085...
Re: Meet Coin (YC W13), a startup creating a universal credit card
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Because it's not worth the cost. Neither are airbags in cars, yet the government stepped in and made them mandatory. > [Credit card companies] all have the incentive in the world to start rolling out chip and pin technology. No, their incentive is to make sure people keep using credit cards. They've done the math and concluded that the amount of user confusion resulting from chip and pin technology resulting in les…
>> because it's not worth the cost. > Neither are airbags in cars, yet the government stepped in and made them mandatory. that's simply untrue. http://www.riskworld.com/news/97q1/nw7aa029.htm this testimony is from 1997, and even with mostly first generation airbags in play at that time it's still wrong. They are even more effective at saving lives now, and many of the problems with passenger side airbags have now be…
Dead customers can't be returning customers?
Re: Meet Coin (YC W13), a startup creating a universal credit card
#176The iCache (from 2007) had an interesting solution to the security issue that everyone is mentioning: [A]ctivate the device with a fingerprint on its biometric strip, scroll through a list of cards on its screen and choose one. Out pops a plastic card with a magnetic stripe, temporarily loaded with the chosen card's data. Just swipe the card and pop it back into the iCache. After one use, the information on the card…
I was thinking a fingerprint scanner is exactly what's missing on these devices (what I've seen so far, Coin, Echo & Wallaby), but this is also an interesting solution with iCache.
Too bad about what happened to it. (Actually just found out about iCache and what exactly happened and while I'm sad, I can't say I'm surprised.)
Re: Meet Coin (YC W13), a startup creating a universal credit card
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's because you need Royal Assent in order to be a bank in Canada. Unlike the US that has hundreds (if not thousands) of banks, Canada only has 5 (or is it 6 now?) massive banks. Having only a few big banks makes it much easier to roll out new technology.
> That's because you need Royal Assent in order to be a bank in Canada. Unlike the US that has hundreds (if not thousands) of banks, Canada only has 5 (or is it 6 now?) massive banks. This isn't really accurate, in that creating a bank nowadays requires only conformation to The Bank Act, not any royal (or by-proxy Governor General) consent. There are 44 domestic or domestic-subsidiary-of-foreign-corporation Schedule…
But all the credit unions are owned by desjardins if I recall correctly.
Re: Meet Coin (YC W13), a startup creating a universal credit card
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the online service has the potential to be the most valuable part of this whole product. All your transactions, across multiple accounts, tracked in one place allowing breakdowns of your spending and clarity on our outgoings. I also see a big win here for Coin, think Mint but with an opportunity to also suggest better products & services to spend your money on (since they'll know almost everything you're buyi…
Valuable to whom? Having a complete record of all of my purchases and where I've been evey day might be a marketer's dream, but it's not my dream.
uh.... better stop paying with plastic then.
Re: Meet Coin (YC W13), a startup creating a universal credit card
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't tell from the site if your card data is stored on your phone or not. If it is, then you're going to have to replace all of your cards if you lose your phone. Also, shouldn't the merchants be checking the signature on the card?
They should but only 40-50% do, I write "Ask for ID" on the signature portion. The ones that read it, ask me for it. Better than a signature that a cashier won't question anyhow.
I have had a debit VISA card for the last 8mo in SF with "SEE ID" in the signature part and I have been asked to show my ID probably 6 times so far.
Re: Meet Coin (YC W13), a startup creating a universal credit card
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the online service has the potential to be the most valuable part of this whole product. All your transactions, across multiple accounts, tracked in one place allowing breakdowns of your spending and clarity on our outgoings. I also see a big win here for Coin, think Mint but with an opportunity to also suggest better products & services to spend your money on (since they'll know almost everything you're buyi…
Valuable to whom? Having a complete record of all of my purchases and where I've been evey day might be a marketer's dream, but it's not my dream.
Marketers already have access to all your purchases.
Your bank statement has ads. Your credit card issuer sells your transactions to their partners. Retailers sell your data to data processing companies. The three big scoring companies have access to all your key financial information - and they sell it back to you (in the form of credit score monitoring services), and to marketers. DSPs allow marketers to bid on impressions at a very precise level, based on which sites you visited yesterday.
Marketer's dreams were already fulfilled years ago. They have a more data than most can handle.
Coin can become the credit card of credit cards. They could offer financing, revolving credit, analytics (like Mint), and tons of other financial products based on credit history. These are a lot more interesting - and profitable - than selling ads (or data) to marketers.
It's an obvious idea, but (apparently) nicely executed. It's a perfect acquisition target for Square. Or Visa/MC/Amex.