So now Google will tell advertisers how much you are willing to pay for products too. Paving the way for omnipresent Amazon(tm) price adjustment based on user history.
Send and receive money with Gmail
41–50 of 71 posts
Re: Send and receive money with Gmail
#42I love this idea, it can be even bigger than Paypal. Three suggestions: First, make it a mobile app as a simplified gmail with just the recipient, the amount and a memo. That's it. In version two add the pic, avatar or whatever people use. Second, open a new wave of email accounts since all gmail accounts are already taken so people can start using their names or businesses as email accounts again. Perhaps GoMail? An…
I firmly believe they have a winner, specially for the small and informal businesses, all they need is to deliver simplicity and security. The pay by email is not as important as the pay by mobile but it can be used to leverage market penetration. Later on add NFC to the mobile app to have a total winner. Now, imagine this mobile app used to pay a taxi driver, a street vendor, a handyman, any and all informal activit…
Please make your own, so that Google has less of a stranglehold on everything.
Re: Send and receive money with Gmail
#43This is EEE.
Re: Send and receive money with Gmail
#44I love this idea, it can be even bigger than Paypal. Three suggestions: First, make it a mobile app as a simplified gmail with just the recipient, the amount and a memo. That's it. In version two add the pic, avatar or whatever people use. Second, open a new wave of email accounts since all gmail accounts are already taken so people can start using their names or businesses as email accounts again. Perhaps GoMail? An…
That app already exists. It's called Google Wallet.
Re: Send and receive money with Gmail
#45As anyone with experience in payments will tell you, this is the easy part (and should explain why Google hasn't expanded the coverage in the four years they have been offering this).
The reason that payments systems are all either expensive or inconvenient (usually both) is that the regulatory systems that underpin the international movement of money are very complicated, and are different in each country.
Getting payments to users in the US and UK is relatively easy; you'll need a business entity in each country and you'll also need to register with the regulators in each country (e.g. as a MSB in the USA, requiring a $1m bond in some states). Note the phrase "relative"; this is not something that a couple kids from Stanford can disrupt, you need expensive lawyers and banking contacts. You can run all of that from your office in Mountain View though.
You'll also need to comply with various "know your customer" regulations; the US government will not be happy if you wire money to O. Bin Laden, or anyone else on the OFAC watchlist. And even if you're sending money to a "gmail UK" email address, you will need some way of proving that you're not sending money to countries that have sanctions/restrictions on capital flows like Iran and North Korea.
That's the easy part. If you actually try to make a serious international play, then you'll need a sizable team in each region that you want to do business in. The Eurozone is relatively easy to cover, but your regulatory requirements in South American countries will probably require one or two people per country (that's to keep your bank relationships warm, and to keep up with all of the paperwork that's required to operate a money transmitter business).
This is why Paypal charges merchant fees of 4.4% _plus forex fee_ to receive money from an arbitrary country in the world. This system is hugely complex, and very resistant to change, due to the serious consequences of making a regulatory error.
Re: Send and receive money with Gmail
#46For those of you interested in Financial Technology and money transfer. Check out the UPI system in India. It's basically an API for banks. It's designed in a way that start ups can approach it. Each user can pick up an ID, say zuron7@bankname and transact with it.
Re: Send and receive money with Gmail
#47After reading a horror story of Facebook completely locking out someone's account for allegedly doing Marketplace fraud, I'm extremely dubious of services adding financial stuff into their existing offering. Imagine being accused of fraud and losing all access to your GMail information.
Google already has a history of that with AdSense, I believe. I think HN has seen stories of total Google lockout over AdSense disputes.
I don't think so... I managed to get banned twice from AdSense and I still use all the other google services with the accounts that got banned.
Re: Send and receive money with Gmail
#48[deleted]
Re: Send and receive money with Gmail
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I firmly believe they have a winner, specially for the small and informal businesses, all they need is to deliver simplicity and security. The pay by email is not as important as the pay by mobile but it can be used to leverage market penetration. Later on add NFC to the mobile app to have a total winner. Now, imagine this mobile app used to pay a taxi driver, a street vendor, a handyman, any and all informal activit…
Please make your own, so that Google has less of a stranglehold on everything.
Already did it for the latinamerican market, but haven't launched it and probably never will. Banking is not hard, it's just too regulated for the mere mortal.
Re: Send and receive money with Gmail
#50Would love to see two things: a) Feature limited on two factor authorization. b) Support for Euro, Germany.
c) Support for direct debit instead of having to use PayPal when one doesn't own a credit card
I believe this works fine with credit/debit cards. I thought all debit cards were credit/debit these days.