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I will say, for what it’s worth, that the customer experience of using Brex is really quite outstanding (my current startup is a customer.) They’ve figured out

by nlh 7y ago

I will say, for what it’s worth, that the customer experience of using Brex is really quite outstanding (my current startup is a customer.) They’ve figured out things that in hindsight just seem so obvious to a good UX, and yet we’ve all been so trained to have low expectations from the mediocre service traditional banks/corporate card providers offer that it seems outstanding. From limited experience - the fact that virtual cards are first-party citizens, the helpful text messages you get (which include a warning the first time you use a card physically, instant text records when you use a card physically, the ability to photograph receipts and send them back to that same text phone #, and and and.) American Express (my only other corporate card comparison) of course _could_ offer this stuff, but it’s just not in their DNA because, well, they haven’t had to innovate because they had what amounts to a monopoly on corporate spending cards. And I should note - Amex ties the credit on those cards to the founder (requiring a personal guarantee until the company reaches a certain - large - size.) Anyway, this is all to say I’m a fan and it doesn’t surprise me they’ve having the success they are so far. Let’s hope they can do it profitably and keep it up!

tempguy9999 7y ago
I have a visa card. They introduced a verification check for online use a few years ago. This involved giving the answer to a question or typing in a passphrase or something (can't remember, I almost never use it). When setting it up on the web I had to type in the answer/passphrase/whatever. It was rejected. I read the form again, looked at the error msg, no indication why, typed it in again, again rejected. I called the bank, "oh, it's got to have a digit in it". It did not say on the form a digit was needed, nor did the error message. They could not even manage to tell the users the most trivial requirements either directly or in the error message. It's beyond pathetic. It's literally incomprehensibly incompetent to fail at such a low level.
- PaulHoule 7y ago
  I remember "Verified By Visa" which would send you to a site that looked like it was drawn by a crayon. It shocks me how financial institutions often make web sites that look like a parody of a phishing site. For instance, my credit union had an online banking service which used the name "myvaultsentry.com" which just seemed liked something a high school hacker would think up. It is strange because operationally Visa is good at what they do, and they put a huge amount of effort and expense into developing a brand, but for legacy organizations (academia too) the web seems to be made of kryptonite.
  - cbanek 7y ago
    "Verified by Visa" is still in use - it just hit me up booking a hotel in Europe from the US. It really does look horrible, like an obvious scam site, but it's not. I really wish they would get rid of it. It actually makes me feel a lot less secure every time it pops up.
  - jackweirdy 7y ago
    MBNA, a credit card provider in the U.K., used to provide online services under a completely different website than their main one, with a domain like “bank card services dot co dot uk”* and a barely-styled website I thought I was being phished until I confirmed it was real on the phone with them. (it may not have been that domain so don’t try in case that’s a sketchy site)
toddg 7y ago
Amex could do it but it’d take a whole lot more money than it would with a greenfield tech landscape (like Brex has). I agree that it’s not in their DNA to be innovative but I also think that it doesn’t make as much since from an ROI perspective as it seems.
dnjdrbdhdbs 7y ago
Brex using the company’s credit instead of the founder’s makes it a leveraged but diversified bet on the startup ecosystem as a whole. From a financial engineering perspective it occupies a plum position because diversification in the startup ecosystem is traditionally very hard to achieve for investors who are bullish on tech but don’t want to take a position on whether AR or VR is better.

by nlh 7y ago

tempguy9999 7y ago

I have a visa card. They introduced a verification check for online use a few years ago. This involved giving the answer to a question or typing in a passphrase or something (can't remember, I almost never use it). When setting it up on the web I had to type in the answer/passphrase/whatever. It was rejected. I read the form again, looked at the error msg, no indication why, typed it in again, again rejected. I called the bank, "oh, it's got to have a digit in it". It did not say on the form a digit was needed, nor did the error message. They could not even manage to tell the users the most trivial requirements either directly or in the error message. It's beyond pathetic. It's literally incomprehensibly incompetent to fail at such a low level.

PaulHoule 7y ago
I remember "Verified By Visa" which would send you to a site that looked like it was drawn by a crayon. It shocks me how financial institutions often make web sites that look like a parody of a phishing site. For instance, my credit union had an online banking service which used the name "myvaultsentry.com" which just seemed liked something a high school hacker would think up. It is strange because operationally Visa is good at what they do, and they put a huge amount of effort and expense into developing a brand, but for legacy organizations (academia too) the web seems to be made of kryptonite.
- cbanek 7y ago
  "Verified by Visa" is still in use - it just hit me up booking a hotel in Europe from the US. It really does look horrible, like an obvious scam site, but it's not. I really wish they would get rid of it. It actually makes me feel a lot less secure every time it pops up.
- jackweirdy 7y ago
  MBNA, a credit card provider in the U.K., used to provide online services under a completely different website than their main one, with a domain like “bank card services dot co dot uk”* and a barely-styled website I thought I was being phished until I confirmed it was real on the phone with them. (it may not have been that domain so don’t try in case that’s a sketchy site)

toddg 7y ago

Amex could do it but it’d take a whole lot more money than it would with a greenfield tech landscape (like Brex has). I agree that it’s not in their DNA to be innovative but I also think that it doesn’t make as much since from an ROI perspective as it seems.

dnjdrbdhdbs 7y ago

Brex using the company’s credit instead of the founder’s makes it a leveraged but diversified bet on the startup ecosystem as a whole. From a financial engineering perspective it occupies a plum position because diversification in the startup ecosystem is traditionally very hard to achieve for investors who are bullish on tech but don’t want to take a position on whether AR or VR is better.