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Noca - Payments Simplified
- fuzzythinker 15y agoAnyone used this?
- nubela 15y agoimpt question: international customers?
- wiradikusuma 15y agoi add another: international merchants?
- chunkyslink 15y agoIn the FAQ is says 'Is this legal is all 50 states' so I'm guessing its USA only. They need to add this answer to the FAQ
- JoshTriplett 15y agoLooks much improved since the last time I looked at it. Last time, it looked awesome except that customers had to provide bank account information to pay with it, which will instantly drive away a huge number of customers. Now it looks like they accept credit cards, too, which makes it a viable contender. In particular, they now have everything they need for the "lightweight payment system market". They still can't address the surprisingly large "I want to pay but I don't have any kind of credit card at all" market, though.
- pjg 15y ago@JoshTriplett About the "I want to pay but I don't have any kind of credit card at all" - that's where Noca's "Check" system comes in. It allows payments using bank account without having to type in the cumbersome Routing # and Account #
- cvander 15y agoCompetition is always welcomed in this market. Don't know how much users are going to use checks instead of a card, and the example only seems good in prices comparing agains authorize and paypal for small transactions, not big ones.
- thinkcomp 15y agoI know PJ, who runs Noca. He's been working on it for several years (it used to be called Paybl). Unfortunately it suffers from the same problems as every other payment system in California that is regulated by the Money Transmission Act, which is to say it's basically illegal as of July 1. Then again, maybe he's changed the business model in some way I'm not aware of. See... http://www.quora.com/Aaron-Greenspan/In-Fifty-Days-Payments-Innovation-Will-Stop-In-Silicon-Valley http://www.quora.com/Aaron-Greenspan/In-Fifty-Days-Payments-... http://www.thinkcomputer.com/corporate/whitepapers/heldhostage.pdf http://www.thinkcomputer.com/corporate/whitepapers/heldhosta... This isn't the first time I've seen a "finally, a real PayPal competitor!" post on Hacker News. I don't think people get it. There isn't going to be one any time soon. PayPal raised a hundred million dollars. It has licenses in 45-ish states and Washington, D.C. that cost about ten million dollars alone. It supports multiple currencies. The dot com boom (and the comparative lack of regulation at the time) is just about the only thing that allowed PayPal to exist. Venture capitalists (and banks) know better now, and they're not enthusiastic about investing in red tape just so Jamie Dimon and friends can make more of it.
- callmeed 15y agoInteresting. If that's truly the case, I'd try and shop this to a bank (Chase?) that could help clear those hurdles and let them run like a startup still.
- thinkcomp 15y agoNever going to happen. Chase just launched its first person-to-person payment platform. It's terrible. Despite being for Chase customers only, it's not even real-time. How long did it take them to build it post-PayPal you might ask? Twelve years.
- pjg 15y agoGoogle "c2it" it was a P2P competitor launched by Citibank circa 2000 to take on Paypal. Never went anywhere. So I generally agree that Chase's attempt (combined with Wells and BoA - which I believe are other two banks in the consortium called ClearXexchange ) is unlikely to succeed unless they have some "out of the box approach"
- jacques_chester 15y ago> For Secure Check(tm), the merchant needs to have a business checking account in a bank in the United States. And consumers can only pay with a checking or savings bank account with a bank in the United States. Currently for VISA/Mastercard Consumers can pay with Visa/Mastercard issued by a bank in United States. We are however opening up to accepting International cards/Checks soon. So basically, no, this isn't a real competitor to PayPal at all.
- pjg 15y agoWhen Paypal launched is did not do "foreign" accounts. We're still in early stage. But more importantly Noca is more of an alternative to Authorize.net than Paypal (the "Paypal competitor headline came from Techcrunch - not from Noca )
- res0nat0r 15y agoWhat about Amazon Payments? Is that a good Paypal alternative?
- rorrr 15y ago2.9% + $0.30 for transactions above $10 So it's exactly the same costs.
- JoshTriplett 15y agohttps://www.xkcd.com/918/ https://www.xkcd.com/918/ seems to apply perfectly to that.
- rorrr 15y ago2.9% + $0.30 for transactions above $10 So it's exactly the same costs.
- foxylad 15y agoThe first paragraph of the "About" page is garbled - doesn't inspire confidence, which is paramount for services like this.
- citricsquid 15y agogod damnit no. the issue is NOT rates, the issue is NOT security, the issue is NOT how "nice" the company is, the issue IS international support. Paypal are "winning" and will forever "win" because they support EVERYONE. Finding a person who can't use Paypal (who is over the age of 18 and isn't a previously terminated customer) is very hard because it supports (almost) EVERYONE yet these "new" "paypal killers" don't and they won't gain any traction because of this. and even then there are still bigger issues, but the biggest issue is international support.
- BasDirks 15y agoCan't send money to a Russian friend over PayPal.[1] [1] http://profy.com/2011/08/30/paypal%E2%80%99s-epic-fail-in-russia-and-ukraine/ http://profy.com/2011/08/30/paypal%E2%80%99s-epic-fail-in-ru...
- tomas_lin 15y agoor Lebanon ( http://paypaldev.org/yaf_postst6666_Paypal-in-Lebanon.aspx http://paypaldev.org/yaf_postst6666_Paypal-in-Lebanon.aspx )
- dangrossman 15y agoThe #1 issue to hit "live chat" support on my sites is potential customers in Pakistan hitting a roadblock because they can't use PayPal. There are over 60 countries where PayPal is not available.
- ary 15y agoI hear you. Though you have to admit that Paypal's heavy-handed "fraud protection" is a big part of why people want a viable competitor.
- dangrossman 15y agoCompared to my own experiences with even normal merchant account providers, and what I've read of 3rd party processors like 2Checkout, and looking at the state of payment processing for adult sites... if the same people that use PayPal and had problems with fraud were to go anywhere else, they'd probably find it even worse. You only hear about PayPal because it's so ubiquitous with 232 million accounts, so many of them with no other experience with any other method of accepting payments.
- dr_ 15y agoAt a 3.49% credit card rate, I'm not sure how much of a real competitor it is. No fixed fee helps for smaller sized transactions though.
- pjg 15y agoNotice the rate for Checks its 1.49% Less than half of Paypal's rate. Paypal is able to route approximately 50% of the users to pay using bank accounts which costs almost zero yet they charge the Merchant the same. With Noca the Merchant saves directly when the Consumer pays using Checks so the average rate is much lower than 3.49% (Plus No Other Charges Apply ) (PS: As I posted/mentioned in this thread, Noca is more of an alternative to Authorize.net than Paypal)
- latch 15y agoIs it common that people are paying for online things with checks? (honest question, nothing I do is worth charging anyone for, so I don't know).
- foobarbazetc 15y agoI can tell you (from looking at real world stats) that only 1% of people use eCheck when paying through PayPal. So it's kind of irrelevant.
- rshm 15y agoYay !! for micro payments. 3.49 is too much for large transactions.
- abloodywar 15y ago>minimum transaction size is $2.00
- pitdesi 15y agoPayPal does a number of things (stored value system, aggregation, virtual terminal, etc). I'm not sure how Noca is a competitor at all. Also, this page has a number of inaccuracies. For example, chargebacks don't exist for checks, Authorize.net as a standalone doesn't enable payments at all (it is a gateway, you also need a merchant account, which you could get cheaper than at Noca), etc. It does NOT take months to sign up with Authorize.net, you can get setup in an hour. Noca is relevant if it is somehow 3.49% for all transactions though... It would make it a cheap option for transactions <$10 or so.
- pjg 15y ago@pitdesi I do need to compliment you on deciphering Noca's service - it is more an Alternative to Authorize.net than Paypal (Thank you for pointing it out ). You are correct, Authorize.net is not a gateway but an aggregator (most people confuse them for a gateway) and yes Noca will will provide a similar service much better About Chargebacks: They do exist for Checks. They're just not called "Chargebacks" instead they are called ACH returns, specifically return code R10 (google "ACH return code R10" ) Its just that ACH i.e. Check payments are not pervasive online hence knowledge about Chargebacks or the ability of the individual Payor i.e. Consumer to initiate a chargeback is generally not known. Unlike Credit Cards, Checks do not have an "800" number printed on the back that the Consumer can call to dispute a payment. However the rules set by the Federal government i.e. the Fed are similar/identical (google "Reg E" or FED regulation 12 CFR 205 specifically 205.6 if you really want to read the rule ). So the issue is more of Consumer interface/UX/UI and Consumer education - something that can and needs to be solved.
- hnbla 15y agoI've never seen the purpose of paypal or the like. What's wrong with direct wire transfer to an IBAN account. * Within the country it's free. * Within EU it's basically free. * You can easily include messages, codes, invoice-nrs etc. * It's included with almost any normal bank account. * It's safe, same safety as signing in at your internet bank - because that's exactly what you're doing.
- pbreit 15y agoPretty spammy submission. The previous title was "Real competitor to PayPal is here - Noca.com" and it links to a "Fees" page that provides little support (for starters, PayPal is generally less expensive). The new title "Noca - Payments Simplified" is not much better considering the link is still to the fees page and Noca does not seem simple at all (ex: the signup page is painful). Finally, the service doesn't appear to be new.
- pjg 15y ago@pbreit Compare it with Authorize.net not Paypal (as I have said in my earlier posts, the "Paypal competitor headline was written by Techcrunch - not Noca ) It will take you a month or so on an average to setup an account with Authorize.net (if you are a small entity ). The signup form that we have at Noca will give you virtually instant sign-up Plus did I tell you our API doesn't suck. (It's not perfect yet, we are working out some kinks but basically accepting payments should be simple and easy for any entity launching on the web - something that incumbents don't do )
- borski 15y agoThis looks like a good service, but I still really haven't found anything that is even close to as easy and simple as Stripe.
- chexton 15y agoI am in Australia so have to watch from afar, but I am really keen to see exactly how Stripe operates. As far as I can work out (I obviously don't have a login) part of what will make them brilliant is they enable you to accept payments in minutes, I.e don't require you to hold a merchant account / create one for you. Is this correct? Keen to know more as PayPal are really the only other service that do this and their increasingly difficult fraud protection barriers must be a result of the complexity of managing such a service.
- borski 15y agoSorry about the late reply, but yeah, that's entirely correct. It's pretty sweet.
- amateurguru 15y agoCan I make deposits to a client account using this? Instead of debiting from the accounts of my users I want to deposit in them (presumably using their account and routing numbers.
- pjg 15y agoNot yet. But our Marketplace solution should be able to provide you with you are looking for. Send an email to "support@noca.com"
- amateurguru 15y agoThanks! I will.
- braindead_in 15y agoAbout -> press leads to a 404. The video player popup moves with mouse on Firefox 6. Is there a direct link to the demo video? I couldn't get it to play on the site.
- jeff18 15y agoA flat 3.49% (not even including the 20% discount at volume) for credit cards is substantially better than PayPal and Amazon for micro-transactions. Is there some kind of hidden fee or limitation I'm missing?
- irengba 15y agoThere are no hidden charges. Noca stands for No Other Charges Apply. There is a minimum transaction size of $2.00 i.e. Noca will not accept transactions smaller than $2.00. Since the average transaction size should be closer to industry average Noca should be able to work without a per transaction fee. Check out http://www.noca.com/merchant http://www.noca.com/merchant (last question in FAQ)
- pjg 15y agoThere is no other fee. (NOCA = No Other Fees Apply). There is a minimum transaction size, currently at $2.00 i.e. Noca will not accept transactions less than $2.00
- plusbryan 15y agoBummer. 99% of our transactions are $1, and so far PayPal is the only merchant that supports this.
- jeff18 15y agoIt was indeed too good to be true. I think you guys should mention that on the site. It's not really fair to compare yourself to Amazon's micro transaction fees but not actually accept micro-payments.
- gst 15y ago@pjg: Do you accept customers having a TPPA (Third Party Payment Aggregation) business model? What are the requirements in order to be accepted as customer?
- pjg 15y ago@gst We may. I hate to use the phrase "it depends" but unless we know more I cannot give you a conclusive answer. If the TPPA is doing "low risk" transactions e.g. utility billing with a service charge lets say, it should be ok. Higher risk items will be tougher. Send an email to "support@noca.com"
- rdl 15y agoThis is a useful payment offering. However, I'd still offer Google Checkout, Paypal, and Amazon to customers in most contexts, since they're more willing to do a transaction at all -- even if you pay a higher rate, it's better to have the transaction happen. Maybe offer this in addition, but I always feel better when I see multiple payment options. Stripe (http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/28/stealth-payment-startup-stripe-paypal/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/28/stealth-payment-startup-str...) is a great option, when they launch. Square is 2.75% and no fees for card present; 3.5% and $0.15 for card not present. ACH (checks) can be $0.25-0.50 flat-rate.
- irengba 15y agoOffering multiple payment options is just fine. Specifically with the "equal preference rule" being rescinded a Merchant can now offer incentives for a specific payment system. Google Checkout, Paypal and Amazon payments all require the Consumer to sign-up or already have an account with these services. While a number of Users already have an account with Paypal, Google checkout the majority don't. e.g. in case of Paypal (estimates vary ) but only 1 out of 4 online users in the US has a Paypal account. Would you as a Merchant be willing to loose upto 75% of your users ? As far Stripe: Not live yet but hopefully will be good Square: is irrelavant since its for Card Present space primarily. Noca is for the CNP Card Not Present space ACH for $0.25-$0.50 has been around for decades. Its hasn't taken off because nobody has their routing number and account number handy. Take a look at Noca's check offering, it obviated the need to repeatedly input Routing number and Account number. Basically making ACH easier for the Consumer and hence way different than traditional ACH.
- brlewis 15y agoGot a link about the "equal preference rule" being rescinded? Sounds interesting and I hadn't heard of it. Googling "equal preference rule credit cards" didn't help me.
- petemccarthy 15y agoI'm waiting for someone to disrupt the "Card Present" side of the industry. I work for a large Point of Sale software provider and the choices and for Payment Gateways are awful. We need things like Noca and Braintree for transactions in the real-world. Our NextGen product is going to be HTML5 web-based client, but we can't find good Payment Gateway partners with a Restful API. If your out there and and working on this, please let me know. Our customers process billions in transactions.
- mcherm 15y agoWatch "square"; they're interesting.
- petemccarthy 15y agoThey're an interesting company, but not for these reasons. If someone built a payment gateway in the same fashion of Noca and Braintree, but for "Card Present" transactions, it could make it easy for many independent developers to build their own "Square". That's what's missing in the "Card Present" space. btw....Square uses Authorize.net
- svisstack 15y agoTHIS NOT SUPPORT MECHRANTS OUTSIDE UNITED STATES ;-( like amazon and authorize.net PayPal Win;-)
- notb 15y agoWhat about WePay!? 3.5% flat fee. Supports international payments. Dead simple API. No merchant account required! Plus, it's only 50¢ for e-checks vs Noca's 1.49%. https://www.wepay.com https://www.wepay.com
- lobster_johnson 15y agoLooks good, but WePay lacks a number of features found in PayPal, such as recurring payments (aka subscriptions).
- aidenn0 15y agoI keep on hearing Foo: Payments Simplified, and yet payments are still complex. Is it perhaps that a lot of what people consider accidental complexity in payments is necessary complexity?