The End of the Credit Card? New Square app: Card Case
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Re: The End of the Credit Card? New Square app: Card Case
#2What I find the most fascinating is that the same company is running both the seller and buyer sides of the transaction. Without middlemen, they have a lot of flexibility to determine how the transaction should occur. Right now credit cards rely upon a fairly complex system of gateways and processing and so it's really complex and difficult to change the process.
I wonder if a security feature they could add would a two-factor authentication where your phone would display a one-time use auth code that you'd give to the cashier to approve the transaction, for those that are worried about automatic billing.
Re: The End of the Credit Card? New Square app: Card Case
#3That is what disruptive innovation looks like. "Oh look, a multi-billion dollar problem people were trying to solve by getting two sides of the market to simultaneously ubiquitously install new hardware. How about we solve it with stuff they already own plus new software instead?"
Re: The End of the Credit Card? New Square app: Card Case
#4What I find the most fascinating is that the same company is running both the seller and buyer sides of the transaction. Without middlemen, they have a lot of flexibility to determine how the transaction should occur. Right now credit cards rely upon a fairly complex system of gateways and processing and so it's really complex and difficult to change the process. I wonder if a security feature they could add would a…
Rather than attempting to have minimum wage employees and average netizens understand what one-time use auth code means, how about we just pop a window on their phone saying "Krispy Kreme wants to charge you $5. Hit the big green button."
Re: The End of the Credit Card? New Square app: Card Case
#5What I find the most fascinating is that the same company is running both the seller and buyer sides of the transaction. Without middlemen, they have a lot of flexibility to determine how the transaction should occur. Right now credit cards rely upon a fairly complex system of gateways and processing and so it's really complex and difficult to change the process. I wonder if a security feature they could add would a…
Exactly, that's simply amazing and a great business model, as well. If they end up like Paypal (I mean huge, not terrible :-)), it'll be pretty easy for everyone involved to send and receive payments...
Re: The End of the Credit Card? New Square app: Card Case
#6It's also pretty interesting to see them build a whole new payment system using normal everyday tech like smartphones and tablets (plus of course remote servers). No expensive custom mainframes and ancient software. The trick now will be to get as many businesses to use it (preferably all of them and preferably worldwide).
I also think using photos is one of the most surefire ways of identifying the buyer, as well - it had a nice effect on credit cards (with photos on them, you can't just steal one and use it for whatever) and it can definitely help curb fraudulent purchases with Card Case.
Re: The End of the Credit Card? New Square app: Card Case
#7If this works, Square will join the narrow ranks of companies who I want to succeed because my life would be dramatically worse without them.
Please let it work.
Re: The End of the Credit Card? New Square app: Card Case
#8I have to admit when Square first came out I didn't see what the big deal was. A little doohickey to plug into your iPhone to swipe cards - sure, sounds useful for certain merchants, but not something world-changing.
It's cool to see that there's a larger plan unfolding. Credit card networks are tough nuts to crack and it looks like they've found a way. Kudos.
Re: The End of the Credit Card? New Square app: Card Case
#9So, this is cool, but...
Why do you have to have a smartphone to do this? If you're going to get businesses on board and use photo IDs to verify every transaction, why not just have the signup process be a webcam and a form?
There's a couple of cool usability things you can do with a smartphone (proximity pushes users that are there to the top of the list in case of name conflicts, whether it's from geofencing, manual inputs, or side-channel geo info), but the basic idea of registering for a store doesn't seem that novel. Why not slap a decent search UI on it and give all the cashiers iPads?
Is this idea so novel that nobody thought you could look up a name and photo via the web at point of sale before today? And if the idea isn't novel, why hasn't anybody successfully executed it?
Re: The End of the Credit Card? New Square app: Card Case
#10[deleted]