8 ms·

Card.io - fast and easy mobile credit card scanning

166 points by davidedicillo 15y ago

baconface 15y ago
Is anyone aware of any direct competition in the credit card "scanning" space?
- avree 15y ago
  I mean, there's Square... but they use a hardware piece. I'm interested to understand why the hardware piece is better than the photo scanner. Is it more secure? More reliable?
  - CrazedGeek 15y ago
    I might be wrong, but I seem to recall that credit card companies charge less in fees for magnetic strip readings than just entering in the number, which the photo scanner would be analogous to.
    - tbgvi 15y ago
      No, you're right :) Swiping a card makes it a card present transaction, which have lower rates than keyed entry. Some processors will even shut you down if too many of your transactions are keyed (worried about fraud). From what I can tell, this just does the scanning and doesn't actually process the transaction though? Could be wrong on that. Also, 15 cents per scan seems expensive.
      - davidedicillo 15y ago
        At the same time it's possible that they cut deals with the processors to be certified in some way, so that if the numbers are retrieved using their service the card is considered present.
- shii 15y ago
  FirstData is king. Huge market share. There's also FaceCash by Think Computers/Aaron Greenspan[1]. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=thinkcomp http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=thinkcomp
jarin 15y ago
This looks even smoother than Square, but I'm curious to see how it handles credit cards with the silvery ink worn off of the numbers, or cards with complex graphics on the front.
- josharian 15y ago
  This is Josh, CTO of card.io. Those are definitely challenges, but we've put quite a lot of effort into handling exactly those sorts of problems, and we do pretty well with them (if I say so myself). One interesting tidbit on this front, from someone who spends a lot of time admiring credit cards: Only some cards have silvery ink on top of the numbers. Some others have silvery plastic underneath the main ink layer (usually part of the card's overall graphic design), so the numbers become more silvery with wear, not less. And yet others have no silver anywhere at all. TAANSTAFL. :)
socmoth 15y ago
(Full disclosure, I'm a stock holder in Square) There are two good reasons Square doesn't do this that I can think of off the top of my head. First, CNP vs CP card processing rates. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_not_present_transaction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_not_present_transaction Every credit card has the CC number encoded in to the back of the card, but in addition to that, it has a couple bytes of extra information. That extra information qualifies the merchant for a lower processing rate if they SWIPE the card. That means, when you take a picture, you are paying closer to 3.5% instead of 2.75% for every transaction. (rates quoted are square's cp vs cnp rates) Some merchants are extremely sensitive to this, other aren't. The larger a merchant is, the more likely they are going to care. On the other hand, no merchant wants to lose a sale, 3.5% of a sale is still better than 100% of a lost sale. The other reason is based on UX. It feels really weird to have someone take a picture of your credit card using their cell phone. The apps that use this technology might be doing anything with that image. Otoh, more people should take credit cards! (edit: Sidenote, Square considered doing this before the swiper was invented, during the very first month or so. Doesn't mean it is a bad idea, just that Square moved away from it in favor of a swiper.)
- https403 15y ago
  Also did you notice its 15¢ per scan!! I believe it will add on to the 10¢-15¢ + percentage merchants have to pay to the processor per Transaction.
  - socmoth 15y ago
    Yeah, this matters way more for transactions less than 5 dollars where it starts to be a large %. If you go to 100 dollar range, it doesn't matter at all. The 10-15 cents just means they are looking for people who sell big things, not coffee shops.
    - ryanmickle 15y ago
      Or lots of little things over time. The user only needs to scan the card the first time.
gregschlom 15y ago
Interesting. I was talking about this idea 2 weeks ago with some friends. Here in France Square doesn't work since only chip cards are accepted, not magnetic stripe cards. So card.io could have a greater market penetration worldwide than Square.
mmettler 15y ago
Hi gang, this is Mike from card.io. socmoth, CrazedGeek, and tbgvi are right that this is considered a CNP transaction and rates are higher. However, our focus is on mobile developers, not retail merchants. By taking friction out of the mobile checkout flow for those developers (because customers don't have to type out their cc number), conversions are higher, and thus revenues are higher. Regarding the user experience: folks are used to scanning barcodes with RedLaser, business cards with CardMunch, and checks with PayPal and the Chase mobile app. If we can make credit card purchasing easy and fast on the phone, that's a good user experience. Thanks for the feedback!
- socmoth 15y ago
  CardMuch, Checks are both examples of me taking a picture of something I own (check, biz card) using my own cell phone. Card.io is someone else taking a picture of my credit card, using their cell phone. In the first two examples, I have control and ownership. In the last example, I have ownership (of the data/card) but no control of the software. Anything that increases conversions is great! Best of luck! I look forward to seeing it in the wild. In fact, are there any merchants in SF I can watch use it yet?
  - StavrosK 15y ago
    It seems to me that all this app does is OCR your name/number/date, instead of having you type it in. I'm sure there will be some users who will be wary of it, but it's not like it can get any more info than you would type into a game or whatnot. Of course, I'm not sure how this is useful, since I understand that in-app purchases need to be tied to the App Store account, but it might be more useful for Android.
  - mmettler 15y ago
    Thanks! We're working with mobile app developers, not retailers or physical merchants. So, instead of typing in your card number into a purchase form, you'll just scan your card from your own phone. We'll have more info about developer partners soon!
  - timjahn 15y ago
pclark 15y ago
How reliable is this? I can barely read my american co-founders credit card numbers on his card.
jvandenbroeck 15y ago
Looks pretty cool, but wouldn't apple screw you? I don't think they'll like this, they want users to buy with the app store.
- mmettler 15y ago
  card.io shouldn't be used for in-app purchases (Apple's StoreKit works quite well there), but for mobile commerce: selling goods, travel purchases, daily deal sites, local services, and the like. These are all places where commerce is taking place outside of the App Store. (edited to add that this is Mike from card.io)
- VanceRefrig 15y ago
  Thats true. I don't think anyone yet has thought about that. Nonetheless, it's a interesting idea. For me, I don't know if I'm comfortable with taking a picture of my card. But who knows.
marcamillion 15y ago
This looks awesome. One thing I could see becoming an issue is in your best case scenario. Say things are wildly successful and people come to expect that merchants will be taking a pic of your credit card with their phone. So you easily hand over your card to some random person to take a pic of it - assuming they are using Card.io. However, what is to prevent nefarious people from just taking a pic with their own app or their own camera ? So what would be good would be if there is some way to indicate (quickly) to the cardholder that the user is actually using Card.io to take the pic, rather than the Camera app - so they are not paranoid about people stealing their numbers. Maybe turning the flash light red (is that even possible?) or something subtle that is a unique indicator that Card.io is being used and not some other app. With Square, it is that little dongle - although I know that once Square gets big enough and the incentive gets large enough for people to create knock-offs of that dongle, I think it's much harder than say using a Camera. Otherwise, awesome app.
- mmettler 15y ago
  This is Mike from card.io. That's a great suggestion - we'll be watching the user experience very closely and will give your idea some thought! Based on developer interest, a common use case will be scanning your card from an app on your own phone - in that case, you're scanning your own card, and you're in control. But this us a great suggestion for retail usage. Thanks!
  - marcamillion 15y ago
    Just throwing it out there...and the truth is...it might not even materialize...but you never know.
- true_religion 15y ago
  > Say things are wildly successful and people come to expect that merchants will be taking a pic of your credit card with their phone. So you easily hand over your card to some random person to take a pic of it - assuming they are using Card.io. When you're sitting in a restaurant and hand over your credit card, the waiter is now in total posssesion of it. They could take a picture of it. They could go to their laptop and make purchases from China. They could run out the backdoor and never return it. Handing over your credit card is a common enough thing, because you are protected from fraud by the credit card companies policies---not by your own regard for if the person you're giving your card is trust worthy or not.
modeless 15y ago
Can you scan the back to get the CVV2 code? All the information you need from the front is embossed so you can read it on the back too.
kyleslattery 15y ago
I'm a little unclear on this--does Card.io handle the payment processing too, or just the card capture itself? If they don't handle the payment processing, how does the card number get passed along?
- mmettler 15y ago
  Hi Kyle, we're just doing the card capture today. Many of our developers already had merchant accounts and were just looking to get rid of the pain of having their customers type in the card number. We scan the card and return the number via SSL to the developer who finalizes the transaction. -Mike from card.io
pud 15y ago
Constructive criticism: This is an example how how the illusion of a beautifully designed, professional-looking site is easily burst by an amateur how-to video.
- mmettler 15y ago
  Hi Pud, Mike from card.io here. I totally agree, and thanks for the criticism. This video goes up tomorrow, courtesy of @zumpangofilms: http://youtu.be/7lg0nMH4NFk?hd=1 http://youtu.be/7lg0nMH4NFk?hd=1
dave1010uk 15y ago
When I buy stuff online then I always make sure the browser's sending data over HTTPS (both on my mobile & desktop). I don't think I'd trust a 3rd party app to safely store and transmit my credit card data. Even non-technical people know to "look for the padlock". Have there been any usability studies to see if users are happy scanning their card from an app?
brevityness 15y ago
Gaaahh! Shaky camera action!
- mmettler 15y ago
  Mike from card.io here. Sorry about that. Try this one: http://youtu.be/7lg0nMH4NFk?hd=1 http://youtu.be/7lg0nMH4NFk?hd=1

166 points by davidedicillo 15y ago

baconface 15y ago

Is anyone aware of any direct competition in the credit card "scanning" space?

avree 15y ago
I mean, there's Square... but they use a hardware piece. I'm interested to understand why the hardware piece is better than the photo scanner. Is it more secure? More reliable?
- CrazedGeek 15y ago
  I might be wrong, but I seem to recall that credit card companies charge less in fees for magnetic strip readings than just entering in the number, which the photo scanner would be analogous to.
  - tbgvi 15y ago
    No, you're right :) Swiping a card makes it a card present transaction, which have lower rates than keyed entry. Some processors will even shut you down if too many of your transactions are keyed (worried about fraud). From what I can tell, this just does the scanning and doesn't actually process the transaction though? Could be wrong on that. Also, 15 cents per scan seems expensive.
    - davidedicillo 15y ago
      At the same time it's possible that they cut deals with the processors to be certified in some way, so that if the numbers are retrieved using their service the card is considered present.
shii 15y ago
FirstData is king. Huge market share. There's also FaceCash by Think Computers/Aaron Greenspan[1]. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=thinkcomp http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=thinkcomp

jarin 15y ago

This looks even smoother than Square, but I'm curious to see how it handles credit cards with the silvery ink worn off of the numbers, or cards with complex graphics on the front.

josharian 15y ago
This is Josh, CTO of card.io. Those are definitely challenges, but we've put quite a lot of effort into handling exactly those sorts of problems, and we do pretty well with them (if I say so myself). One interesting tidbit on this front, from someone who spends a lot of time admiring credit cards: Only some cards have silvery ink on top of the numbers. Some others have silvery plastic underneath the main ink layer (usually part of the card's overall graphic design), so the numbers become more silvery with wear, not less. And yet others have no silver anywhere at all. TAANSTAFL. :)

socmoth 15y ago

(Full disclosure, I'm a stock holder in Square) There are two good reasons Square doesn't do this that I can think of off the top of my head. First, CNP vs CP card processing rates. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_not_present_transaction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_not_present_transaction Every credit card has the CC number encoded in to the back of the card, but in addition to that, it has a couple bytes of extra information. That extra information qualifies the merchant for a lower processing rate if they SWIPE the card. That means, when you take a picture, you are paying closer to 3.5% instead of 2.75% for every transaction. (rates quoted are square's cp vs cnp rates) Some merchants are extremely sensitive to this, other aren't. The larger a merchant is, the more likely they are going to care. On the other hand, no merchant wants to lose a sale, 3.5% of a sale is still better than 100% of a lost sale. The other reason is based on UX. It feels really weird to have someone take a picture of your credit card using their cell phone. The apps that use this technology might be doing anything with that image. Otoh, more people should take credit cards! (edit: Sidenote, Square considered doing this before the swiper was invented, during the very first month or so. Doesn't mean it is a bad idea, just that Square moved away from it in favor of a swiper.)

https403 15y ago
Also did you notice its 15¢ per scan!! I believe it will add on to the 10¢-15¢ + percentage merchants have to pay to the processor per Transaction.
- socmoth 15y ago
  Yeah, this matters way more for transactions less than 5 dollars where it starts to be a large %. If you go to 100 dollar range, it doesn't matter at all. The 10-15 cents just means they are looking for people who sell big things, not coffee shops.
  - ryanmickle 15y ago
    Or lots of little things over time. The user only needs to scan the card the first time.

gregschlom 15y ago

Interesting. I was talking about this idea 2 weeks ago with some friends. Here in France Square doesn't work since only chip cards are accepted, not magnetic stripe cards. So card.io could have a greater market penetration worldwide than Square.

mmettler 15y ago

Hi gang, this is Mike from card.io. socmoth, CrazedGeek, and tbgvi are right that this is considered a CNP transaction and rates are higher. However, our focus is on mobile developers, not retail merchants. By taking friction out of the mobile checkout flow for those developers (because customers don't have to type out their cc number), conversions are higher, and thus revenues are higher. Regarding the user experience: folks are used to scanning barcodes with RedLaser, business cards with CardMunch, and checks with PayPal and the Chase mobile app. If we can make credit card purchasing easy and fast on the phone, that's a good user experience. Thanks for the feedback!

socmoth 15y ago
CardMuch, Checks are both examples of me taking a picture of something I own (check, biz card) using my own cell phone. Card.io is someone else taking a picture of my credit card, using their cell phone. In the first two examples, I have control and ownership. In the last example, I have ownership (of the data/card) but no control of the software. Anything that increases conversions is great! Best of luck! I look forward to seeing it in the wild. In fact, are there any merchants in SF I can watch use it yet?
- StavrosK 15y ago
  It seems to me that all this app does is OCR your name/number/date, instead of having you type it in. I'm sure there will be some users who will be wary of it, but it's not like it can get any more info than you would type into a game or whatnot. Of course, I'm not sure how this is useful, since I understand that in-app purchases need to be tied to the App Store account, but it might be more useful for Android.
- mmettler 15y ago
  Thanks! We're working with mobile app developers, not retailers or physical merchants. So, instead of typing in your card number into a purchase form, you'll just scan your card from your own phone. We'll have more info about developer partners soon!
- timjahn 15y ago

pclark 15y ago

How reliable is this? I can barely read my american co-founders credit card numbers on his card.

jvandenbroeck 15y ago

Looks pretty cool, but wouldn't apple screw you? I don't think they'll like this, they want users to buy with the app store.

mmettler 15y ago
card.io shouldn't be used for in-app purchases (Apple's StoreKit works quite well there), but for mobile commerce: selling goods, travel purchases, daily deal sites, local services, and the like. These are all places where commerce is taking place outside of the App Store. (edited to add that this is Mike from card.io)
VanceRefrig 15y ago
Thats true. I don't think anyone yet has thought about that. Nonetheless, it's a interesting idea. For me, I don't know if I'm comfortable with taking a picture of my card. But who knows.

marcamillion 15y ago

This looks awesome. One thing I could see becoming an issue is in your best case scenario. Say things are wildly successful and people come to expect that merchants will be taking a pic of your credit card with their phone. So you easily hand over your card to some random person to take a pic of it - assuming they are using Card.io. However, what is to prevent nefarious people from just taking a pic with their own app or their own camera ? So what would be good would be if there is some way to indicate (quickly) to the cardholder that the user is actually using Card.io to take the pic, rather than the Camera app - so they are not paranoid about people stealing their numbers. Maybe turning the flash light red (is that even possible?) or something subtle that is a unique indicator that Card.io is being used and not some other app. With Square, it is that little dongle - although I know that once Square gets big enough and the incentive gets large enough for people to create knock-offs of that dongle, I think it's much harder than say using a Camera. Otherwise, awesome app.

mmettler 15y ago
This is Mike from card.io. That's a great suggestion - we'll be watching the user experience very closely and will give your idea some thought! Based on developer interest, a common use case will be scanning your card from an app on your own phone - in that case, you're scanning your own card, and you're in control. But this us a great suggestion for retail usage. Thanks!
- marcamillion 15y ago
  Just throwing it out there...and the truth is...it might not even materialize...but you never know.
true_religion 15y ago
> Say things are wildly successful and people come to expect that merchants will be taking a pic of your credit card with their phone. So you easily hand over your card to some random person to take a pic of it - assuming they are using Card.io. When you're sitting in a restaurant and hand over your credit card, the waiter is now in total posssesion of it. They could take a picture of it. They could go to their laptop and make purchases from China. They could run out the backdoor and never return it. Handing over your credit card is a common enough thing, because you are protected from fraud by the credit card companies policies---not by your own regard for if the person you're giving your card is trust worthy or not.

modeless 15y ago

Can you scan the back to get the CVV2 code? All the information you need from the front is embossed so you can read it on the back too.

kyleslattery 15y ago

I'm a little unclear on this--does Card.io handle the payment processing too, or just the card capture itself? If they don't handle the payment processing, how does the card number get passed along?

mmettler 15y ago
Hi Kyle, we're just doing the card capture today. Many of our developers already had merchant accounts and were just looking to get rid of the pain of having their customers type in the card number. We scan the card and return the number via SSL to the developer who finalizes the transaction. -Mike from card.io

pud 15y ago

Constructive criticism: This is an example how how the illusion of a beautifully designed, professional-looking site is easily burst by an amateur how-to video.

mmettler 15y ago
Hi Pud, Mike from card.io here. I totally agree, and thanks for the criticism. This video goes up tomorrow, courtesy of @zumpangofilms: http://youtu.be/7lg0nMH4NFk?hd=1 http://youtu.be/7lg0nMH4NFk?hd=1

dave1010uk 15y ago

When I buy stuff online then I always make sure the browser's sending data over HTTPS (both on my mobile & desktop). I don't think I'd trust a 3rd party app to safely store and transmit my credit card data. Even non-technical people know to "look for the padlock". Have there been any usability studies to see if users are happy scanning their card from an app?

brevityness 15y ago

Gaaahh! Shaky camera action!

mmettler 15y ago
Mike from card.io here. Sorry about that. Try this one: http://youtu.be/7lg0nMH4NFk?hd=1 http://youtu.be/7lg0nMH4NFk?hd=1