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Most of the replies here are a great example of a filter bubble. Living in San Francisco or New York you just assume everyone has a credit card. Not so. A qua

by ig1 14y ago

Most of the replies here are a great example of a filter bubble. Living in San Francisco or New York you just assume everyone has a credit card. Not so. A quarter of US households are unbanked or underbanked and primarily rely upon cash for payments. That's why Walmart introduced shop online and pay in person. Only 15% of Walmart's in-store customers pay via card, from surveys they found that two-thirds of their online customers would prefer to pay in cash.

jurassic 14y ago
Do you have a source for that? I'd be interested in reading more about it. I never would have guessed credit transactions would be that low at Walmart; I grew up in a poor, "redneck" area and knew a lot of people (my family included) that depended on the "float" you get with a credit card to give a little flexibility over their normal paycheck-to-paycheck existence. But I'd believe the data, if it exists for public consumption.
- 18pfsmt 14y ago
  I'm curious what searches have you done to find such data. Companies like Netspend (just acquired this week by TSYS) and Greendot exist almost exclusively to serve this market. American Express has their own offering called Bluebird card to compete in the same market. There are lots of articles discussing these companies and the target market of the "unbanked" when looking for info on these public companies. The only reason I hesitate to post links to specifics is because I'd rather not taint your approach to finding such information, but it is pretty easy to find, if you are to search.
hkmurakami 14y ago
That's actually quite interesting. It reminds me that Japan as a whole has very low credit card penetration as well, and the primary mode of transaction is cash, even for items costing hundreds of dollars (or tens of thousands of yen, to be precise). Use of 10,000 yen bills (~$100) is routine. People still have latent mistrust for handing over credit card information online. Virtually all courier services have a "pay upon arrival" option which allows you to pay for the cost of the item + the shipping when you receive the item. The courier then pays the retailer for the item cost. edit: It may also have to do with the fact that the financial services industry there is even more sales driven and more scammy than its U.S. counterpart, and hence the public has a mistrust for all financial "products" that are anything other than super conservative.
- mathrawka 14y ago
  I remember building my first EC site in Japan. The payment processor gave us an API to use that included all the fancy options of paying at a convience store, COD, Bank Transfer and credit cards. It seemed really weird at first, but then I noticed how nice it was for people who did not have credit cards. It was always fun to know that the payment notification handler on the server would get hit when someone goes to 7-11 and pays their bill. I forget the percentage, but most orders were not using credit cards.
  - chiaro 14y ago
    That's really quite interesting. Could you share the processor for curiosity's sake?
    - pwim 14y ago
      Pretty much all Japanese payment processors support payment at convenience store. http://www.gmo-pg.com/ http://www.gmo-pg.com/ and http://www.paygent.co.jp/ http://www.paygent.co.jp/ are two examples.
- kevin_rubyhouse 14y ago
  What sort of credit card penetration do other parts of the world such as Western Europe/Eastern Europe/Middle East/SE Asian Countries/Australia... other places. Where do you get the information that you wrote about? I'd be very interested to read into it further. Anybody know any relevant works off the top of your head that you could share?
  - hkmurakami 14y ago
    Where do you get the information that you wrote about? I'd be very interested to read into it further. Anybody know any relevant works off the top of your head that you could share? Unfortunately this is from anecdotal experience. I was living and working in Japan for some time so I saw first hand what services are offered and how people behave.
  - 14y ago
cookiecaper 14y ago
"unbanked" and "underbanked" are a great illustration of the way one can misapply terminology to create an artificially negative view. I would suggest that most who would be considered "un[der]banked" by the banking and commerce industries are quite happy with their status. We should try not to proliferate terms that imply a negative accusation just because someone chooses to do or believe an innocent thing that's different from what some other people do, believe, or want others to do or believe (particularly the word's inventors).
wmf 14y ago
Is Affirm willing to extend credit to those people?
rohamg 14y ago
Your reply here has limited applicability to Affirm. Max is using a user's digital identity to assure them credit- he'd never be able to do that with an "unbanked" customer who by definition would have quite a limited history.

by ig1 14y ago

jurassic 14y ago

Do you have a source for that? I'd be interested in reading more about it. I never would have guessed credit transactions would be that low at Walmart; I grew up in a poor, "redneck" area and knew a lot of people (my family included) that depended on the "float" you get with a credit card to give a little flexibility over their normal paycheck-to-paycheck existence. But I'd believe the data, if it exists for public consumption.

18pfsmt 14y ago
I'm curious what searches have you done to find such data. Companies like Netspend (just acquired this week by TSYS) and Greendot exist almost exclusively to serve this market. American Express has their own offering called Bluebird card to compete in the same market. There are lots of articles discussing these companies and the target market of the "unbanked" when looking for info on these public companies. The only reason I hesitate to post links to specifics is because I'd rather not taint your approach to finding such information, but it is pretty easy to find, if you are to search.

hkmurakami 14y ago

That's actually quite interesting. It reminds me that Japan as a whole has very low credit card penetration as well, and the primary mode of transaction is cash, even for items costing hundreds of dollars (or tens of thousands of yen, to be precise). Use of 10,000 yen bills (~$100) is routine. People still have latent mistrust for handing over credit card information online. Virtually all courier services have a "pay upon arrival" option which allows you to pay for the cost of the item + the shipping when you receive the item. The courier then pays the retailer for the item cost. edit: It may also have to do with the fact that the financial services industry there is even more sales driven and more scammy than its U.S. counterpart, and hence the public has a mistrust for all financial "products" that are anything other than super conservative.

mathrawka 14y ago
I remember building my first EC site in Japan. The payment processor gave us an API to use that included all the fancy options of paying at a convience store, COD, Bank Transfer and credit cards. It seemed really weird at first, but then I noticed how nice it was for people who did not have credit cards. It was always fun to know that the payment notification handler on the server would get hit when someone goes to 7-11 and pays their bill. I forget the percentage, but most orders were not using credit cards.
- chiaro 14y ago
  That's really quite interesting. Could you share the processor for curiosity's sake?
  - pwim 14y ago
    Pretty much all Japanese payment processors support payment at convenience store. http://www.gmo-pg.com/ http://www.gmo-pg.com/ and http://www.paygent.co.jp/ http://www.paygent.co.jp/ are two examples.
kevin_rubyhouse 14y ago
What sort of credit card penetration do other parts of the world such as Western Europe/Eastern Europe/Middle East/SE Asian Countries/Australia... other places. Where do you get the information that you wrote about? I'd be very interested to read into it further. Anybody know any relevant works off the top of your head that you could share?
- hkmurakami 14y ago
  Where do you get the information that you wrote about? I'd be very interested to read into it further. Anybody know any relevant works off the top of your head that you could share? Unfortunately this is from anecdotal experience. I was living and working in Japan for some time so I saw first hand what services are offered and how people behave.
- 14y ago

cookiecaper 14y ago

"unbanked" and "underbanked" are a great illustration of the way one can misapply terminology to create an artificially negative view. I would suggest that most who would be considered "un[der]banked" by the banking and commerce industries are quite happy with their status. We should try not to proliferate terms that imply a negative accusation just because someone chooses to do or believe an innocent thing that's different from what some other people do, believe, or want others to do or believe (particularly the word's inventors).

wmf 14y ago

Is Affirm willing to extend credit to those people?

rohamg 14y ago

Your reply here has limited applicability to Affirm. Max is using a user's digital identity to assure them credit- he'd never be able to do that with an "unbanked" customer who by definition would have quite a limited history.