10 ms·

Tech companies are clamoring to give you credit cards

34 points by prostoalex 6y ago

45756e 6y ago
Funny to think that as well as tech companies trying to give out credit cards, a few financial companies (Capital One) are now seeing themselves and identifying as tech companies. Although based on the article, it doesn't seem like the latter is really related to the former.
- 908B64B197 6y ago
  > a few financial companies (Capital One) are now seeing themselves and identifying as tech companies. Is it branding or an actual shift? I've seen many companies pivot to being "tech companies" but still didn't have incentives in place to attract real talent, and more crucially that still treated software and tech as a cost center. But hey they had bean bags!
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - milkytron 6y ago
    Having worked for banks that have said this, I can say it's branding without much substance behind it. They say this to attract talent. The talent doesn't remain long unless they get into all the politics and butt sniffing that goes on at large established companies. Those that actually produce end up being taken advantage of and credit goes towards the people that manage them.
    - 908B64B197 6y ago
      It's what I observed with banks. No matter how much the tech contributes to the bottom line, bonus and incentives are still focused on the trading floor and salespeople.
  - 1MachineElf 6y ago
    Before their infamous AWS breach, a former coworker of mine tried to get me hired there under a fancy cyber security operations title. He gave me a tour of the new(ish) building around Tysons Corner, VA. It is a very modern building, with a lot of charging stations and Tesla model S EVs in the parking garage. Public events happen there, they have two cafeterias, and probably a whole bunch of networks supporting all of that. They constantly evaluate new cyber tools, so I was told. It seemed to me that, yes, there could be something behind this idea that they are "a tech company." So I went through the hiring process. There's an online proprietary aptitude test that's required of all candidates, and it's apparently such a big deal, that you can only take it once per 6 months. They start you off with a practice test served from a non-CapitalOne FQDN, then the real one served from a CapitalOne FQDN. Well, I took both, and got an error at the end of the real one. Apparently, Firefox is explicitly supported on the practice test, but only IE11 is supported on the real one. The error meant none of my exam results were recorded, and due to some technicality, that meant I was SOL for 6 months. My experience with CapitalOne, the "tech company" whose aptitude exam required a legacy browser, ended right there.
    - 908B64B197 6y ago
      > So I went through the hiring process. There's an online proprietary aptitude test that's required of all candidates, and it's apparently such a big deal, that you can only take it once per 6 months. Is it at least a technical test? "Aptitudes and psychometric tests" are, to me, a red flag at tech companies, that it's HR and not engineering that's in charge of hiring.
- ponker 6y ago
  Capital One has always been a tech / big data powered company.
AnonHP 6y ago
Outline link for anyone who has trouble accessing this article like I did: https://outline.com/nEmsbN https://outline.com/nEmsbN
est31 6y ago
The entire idea behind credit cards is to force processing fees upon store owners. As a store owner you are required to pay up to 3.5% of your revenue to the processing company (the percentage can be even higher than that if you sell stuff for small amounts, like just a dollar). With cash you can choose your bank and there is more of a free market, while with credit cards you can't get around not accepting certain brands. It also ruins the business for banks, which have to increase their processing fees, causing the cost of cash payments for the business owners to increase further and further.
- cheonic729 6y ago
  > The entire idea behind credit cards is to force processing fees upon store owners. No. As a consumer, I enjoy immense value by carrying around zero cash. In fact, I don't even carry around physical cards (thank you Apple/Google Pay).
  - throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
    What is this 'immense value'?
    - remus 6y ago
      Not carting a pocketful of loose change round your entire life. Not an issue for some people, but I really like carrying less stuff.
      - thaumasiotes 6y ago
        Loose change is both heavy and worthless. You can carry cash around without bothering with loose change.
        yourapostasy 6y ago
        A very privileged perspective. Most of the world still counts their pennies, and the surcharges on non-cash monetary transactions make a sizeable, noticeable dent if pointed out to them. It's a tough balance they have to navigate. Though I'm extremely privileged now myself, I'm not so far removed that I have forgotten those days when down-to-the-penny accounting mattered. In the US at least, if you had the right education (which sadly many lack), you can live amazingly inexpensively by forgoing many societal conventions and expectations.
Shivetya 6y ago
I understand some of the appeal of metal cards and the like but this seem short order as the move to contact less payments increases. To be honest the less someone knows about my purchase which includes the brand on the card the better Now I can see the appeal to some, example the Apple card, where pricey items can be paid for at no interest with the added hope they use your card elsewhere. I haven't look into Apple's card but does it give you "points" for later Apple only purchases? I still see more appeal in products like Chase Prime cards as there are many more products I can pick up at Amazon to get five percent on at all times instead. I only keep two cards and this one was chosen as having the biggest impact.
- NathanielLovin 6y ago
  Apple Card is 1% cash back on all purchases, 2% if you use Apple Pay, 3% if you shop at Apple (and a couple others now). It as Apple Cash so it can be used anyway you use Apple Pay (or just on your statement, I think). It’s not the best card but it’s decent.
- fossuser 6y ago
  The Apple Card is great - I switched to it and closed all my other credit accounts (even though the others had better overall cash return when factoring in their points value). I did this for a few reasons. - Better software: The iOS integration with Apple Card is really good. The second best I've seen was Amex, but they were still a distant second. - "Daily Cashback" - just automatically putting the 1%/2%/3% back onto the cash card on my phone daily rather than having to deal with the card software/points etc. The time/value return on point optimization is fun, but ultimately just not worth it to me. - Third party transaction protection: Apple made [edit: Goldman Sachs] agree to not resell transaction data. - No upsell: Other cards are constantly spamming you with offers to get their checking account, services, etc. I don't want any of these things, often the attempts to disable the emails doesn't totally work. - Easy cancel: Other cards require you to call and deal with retention services in order to cancel. Other card services really dropped the ball on this, AMEX in particular is user hostile. Want to use the airplane points? You must pick an airline (not obvious). You want to get the money towards rideshare? You must click the boxes the enable it or you don't get it. Oh - you also get the rideshare money doled out $15/month without rollover to make it maximally hard to use. Paying $550/yr and then feeling like they're screwing you at every turn doesn't create much loyalty. The Chase Sapphire Reserve was probably the best overall card before I switched to the Apple one. If the other companies actually cared about their users they could have made a much better product. There's huge opportunity in this space to make something that doesn't suck with rewards that people actually want.
ecopoesis 6y ago
Because in capitalism the end state of every successful business is finance or real estate.
mrxd 6y ago
Not a great article. Cobranded cards have proliferated because of lower interchange fees. Customer loyalty isn’t the main benefit to the company.

34 points by prostoalex 6y ago

Funny to think that as well as tech companies trying to give out credit cards, a few financial companies (Capital One) are now seeing themselves and identifying as tech companies. Although based on the article, it doesn't seem like the latter is really related to the former.

908B64B197 6y ago
> a few financial companies (Capital One) are now seeing themselves and identifying as tech companies. Is it branding or an actual shift? I've seen many companies pivot to being "tech companies" but still didn't have incentives in place to attract real talent, and more crucially that still treated software and tech as a cost center. But hey they had bean bags!
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- milkytron 6y ago
  Having worked for banks that have said this, I can say it's branding without much substance behind it. They say this to attract talent. The talent doesn't remain long unless they get into all the politics and butt sniffing that goes on at large established companies. Those that actually produce end up being taken advantage of and credit goes towards the people that manage them.
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    It's what I observed with banks. No matter how much the tech contributes to the bottom line, bonus and incentives are still focused on the trading floor and salespeople.
- 1MachineElf 6y ago
  Before their infamous AWS breach, a former coworker of mine tried to get me hired there under a fancy cyber security operations title. He gave me a tour of the new(ish) building around Tysons Corner, VA. It is a very modern building, with a lot of charging stations and Tesla model S EVs in the parking garage. Public events happen there, they have two cafeterias, and probably a whole bunch of networks supporting all of that. They constantly evaluate new cyber tools, so I was told. It seemed to me that, yes, there could be something behind this idea that they are "a tech company." So I went through the hiring process. There's an online proprietary aptitude test that's required of all candidates, and it's apparently such a big deal, that you can only take it once per 6 months. They start you off with a practice test served from a non-CapitalOne FQDN, then the real one served from a CapitalOne FQDN. Well, I took both, and got an error at the end of the real one. Apparently, Firefox is explicitly supported on the practice test, but only IE11 is supported on the real one. The error meant none of my exam results were recorded, and due to some technicality, that meant I was SOL for 6 months. My experience with CapitalOne, the "tech company" whose aptitude exam required a legacy browser, ended right there.
  - 908B64B197 6y ago
    > So I went through the hiring process. There's an online proprietary aptitude test that's required of all candidates, and it's apparently such a big deal, that you can only take it once per 6 months. Is it at least a technical test? "Aptitudes and psychometric tests" are, to me, a red flag at tech companies, that it's HR and not engineering that's in charge of hiring.
ponker 6y ago
Capital One has always been a tech / big data powered company.

AnonHP 6y ago

Outline link for anyone who has trouble accessing this article like I did: https://outline.com/nEmsbN https://outline.com/nEmsbN

est31 6y ago

The entire idea behind credit cards is to force processing fees upon store owners. As a store owner you are required to pay up to 3.5% of your revenue to the processing company (the percentage can be even higher than that if you sell stuff for small amounts, like just a dollar). With cash you can choose your bank and there is more of a free market, while with credit cards you can't get around not accepting certain brands. It also ruins the business for banks, which have to increase their processing fees, causing the cost of cash payments for the business owners to increase further and further.

cheonic729 6y ago
> The entire idea behind credit cards is to force processing fees upon store owners. No. As a consumer, I enjoy immense value by carrying around zero cash. In fact, I don't even carry around physical cards (thank you Apple/Google Pay).
- throwaway_pdp09 6y ago
  What is this 'immense value'?
  - remus 6y ago
    Not carting a pocketful of loose change round your entire life. Not an issue for some people, but I really like carrying less stuff.
    - thaumasiotes 6y ago
      Loose change is both heavy and worthless. You can carry cash around without bothering with loose change.
      - yourapostasy 6y ago
        A very privileged perspective. Most of the world still counts their pennies, and the surcharges on non-cash monetary transactions make a sizeable, noticeable dent if pointed out to them. It's a tough balance they have to navigate. Though I'm extremely privileged now myself, I'm not so far removed that I have forgotten those days when down-to-the-penny accounting mattered. In the US at least, if you had the right education (which sadly many lack), you can live amazingly inexpensively by forgoing many societal conventions and expectations.

Shivetya 6y ago

I understand some of the appeal of metal cards and the like but this seem short order as the move to contact less payments increases. To be honest the less someone knows about my purchase which includes the brand on the card the better Now I can see the appeal to some, example the Apple card, where pricey items can be paid for at no interest with the added hope they use your card elsewhere. I haven't look into Apple's card but does it give you "points" for later Apple only purchases? I still see more appeal in products like Chase Prime cards as there are many more products I can pick up at Amazon to get five percent on at all times instead. I only keep two cards and this one was chosen as having the biggest impact.

NathanielLovin 6y ago
Apple Card is 1% cash back on all purchases, 2% if you use Apple Pay, 3% if you shop at Apple (and a couple others now). It as Apple Cash so it can be used anyway you use Apple Pay (or just on your statement, I think). It’s not the best card but it’s decent.
fossuser 6y ago
The Apple Card is great - I switched to it and closed all my other credit accounts (even though the others had better overall cash return when factoring in their points value). I did this for a few reasons. - Better software: The iOS integration with Apple Card is really good. The second best I've seen was Amex, but they were still a distant second. - "Daily Cashback" - just automatically putting the 1%/2%/3% back onto the cash card on my phone daily rather than having to deal with the card software/points etc. The time/value return on point optimization is fun, but ultimately just not worth it to me. - Third party transaction protection: Apple made [edit: Goldman Sachs] agree to not resell transaction data. - No upsell: Other cards are constantly spamming you with offers to get their checking account, services, etc. I don't want any of these things, often the attempts to disable the emails doesn't totally work. - Easy cancel: Other cards require you to call and deal with retention services in order to cancel. Other card services really dropped the ball on this, AMEX in particular is user hostile. Want to use the airplane points? You must pick an airline (not obvious). You want to get the money towards rideshare? You must click the boxes the enable it or you don't get it. Oh - you also get the rideshare money doled out $15/month without rollover to make it maximally hard to use. Paying $550/yr and then feeling like they're screwing you at every turn doesn't create much loyalty. The Chase Sapphire Reserve was probably the best overall card before I switched to the Apple one. If the other companies actually cared about their users they could have made a much better product. There's huge opportunity in this space to make something that doesn't suck with rewards that people actually want.

ecopoesis 6y ago

Because in capitalism the end state of every successful business is finance or real estate.

mrxd 6y ago

Not a great article. Cobranded cards have proliferated because of lower interchange fees. Customer loyalty isn’t the main benefit to the company.