18 ms·

Final – A credit card built for the 21st century

517 points by arfrank 12y ago

donniefitz2 12y ago
I have to say, the intro video for this was pretty good. Well done.
- rbinv 12y ago
  Done by Sandwich Video: http://sandwichvideo.com/ http://sandwichvideo.com/
- w4 12y ago
  It's made by Sandwich Video (who do great work): http://sandwichvideo.com/ http://sandwichvideo.com/ Notice the same guy in nearly every video.
  - dublinben 12y ago
    He's really embracing the 'selling pickaxes' model of cashing in on a boom. Even if all the companies they've promoted fail, they've still been paid.
- tambourine_man 12y ago
  Honest question, what is it that people like about this persona often played by Adam Lisagor?
  - panopticon 12y ago
    I don't quite understand it either; I find his videos to be slightly uncomfortable.
  - vitamen 12y ago
    He feels anti-corporate, quirky but not annoyingly so. He absolutely has his own brand so where it once felt refreshing now it just feels sandwich, but it's not to a point where that's a bad thing.
- leaveyou 12y ago
  I watched the video only after I saw your remark and I have to agree. It's the first advertisement in ages that nearly got me interested into what they have to sell. I usually can't stand a classic video presentation.
  - arfrank 12y ago
    Thank you! Adam is a creative genius who knows the right way to convey complex messages. It took many iterations to get it just right, but he's the real star here.
clarkmoody 12y ago
Huge feeling of déjà vu after having just watched the marketing video[1] for Slack yesterday. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6zVzWU95Sw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6zVzWU95Sw
arfrank 12y ago
CTO/Co-Founder of Final here. Final is what we built to take back control of our own credit cards for how and when we’re charged, instead of leaving it up to merchants. That led to merchant-specific numbers and limits, managed automatically, as well as transparency in statements. It’s our stake in the ground, a way to shift the culture in credit towards consumer friendliness. Happy to answer questions
- Aloha 12y ago
  Your signup link doesnt work with IE9, it just gives a page cannot be displayed error.
  - arfrank 12y ago
    Thanks, looking into this right now.
    - ewoodrich 12y ago
      It also appears to have a typo: Enter your emaill address for early access...
      - arfrank 12y ago
        Thanks, editing the live code repo of our marketing site to make the CTA clearer
  - johng 12y ago
    For nerds, we know to enter our email address into the box... but I would add some text above it for the regular folk who just say "wtf do I type into this box"
- otoburb 12y ago
  Will the physical card have a number embossed on it, similar to other cards? Or can the physical card number be changed in some way (e.g. Plastc's demo supposedly leveraging e-ink display on the card[1])? Also, does Final aim to become a credit card payments processor similar to Visa, Mastercard, et. al., or will you be leveraging a banking/credit institution in the backend to start with? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8422928 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8422928
untog 12y ago
Having panned Plastc yesterday, this is like night and day - where Plastc is trying to solve "I have too many credit cards in my wallet" with an overdose of technology, Final is solving an actual real problem (credit card fraud) with an intelligent use of technology. In fact, I don't even want a physical card (chip and pin will make that difficult anyway), I just want an online service that will generate a new credit card number for me on demand. The budget tracking etc. is nice (and I understand why you want to add it for customer engagement and blah) but I'd love a totally stripped down service that gives me card numbers and pings me when they're used - and I would happily pay for it.
- Fuzzwah 12y ago
  I have had this via neteller for many years; one off mastercard numbers. Too bad they got caught up in the stupid anti-online poker bollocks a while back and can't service US customers.
- mraison 12y ago
  > I just want an online service that will generate a new credit card number for me on demand. I'm wondering why it's not more widespread. My (small) bank has been providing me a unique card number for every purchase for at least the last 5 years, and they're not usually on the cutting edge regarding banking technology. You can also give a maximum amount that can be withdrawn on the card, and once someone has withdrawn money using that number, no one else can do it.
  - Karunamon 12y ago
    There's a service called MaskMe that offers on-the-fly credit cards like this. It's a paid service, but what they do is you right click on a field, and generate a new card number. This card is basically prepaid - the service provider charges your real card for whatever the value you say, and the person you're buying from gets the number you just created. Only real downside is that the generated cards are all MasterCard, and some merchants don't take anything but Visa.
- eli 12y ago
  Is credit card fraud a real problem for consumers? My experience has been that my number gets stolen and American Express overnights me a new card. It's mildly inconvenient to update my recurring billing info, but it's not something I feel like I need a product to solve.
Someone1234 12y ago
> Final lets you give a unique credit card number to every merchant, or a disposable one-time use number for one-off purchases. This is something I have been asking for since forever! People on here claimed it was "impossible" because of how credit cards work, I guess not... > Tired of your monthly yoga pants subscription? Or a two-week "free" trial that lasted four months? Just deactivate that card number. It's that easy. They need to be careful what they advise. That advice could (and likely WILL) result in people getting taken to collections. Don't like your ISP? Just cancel the CC number, then 12 months later get a bailiff turn up and seize your stuff...
- pbreit 12y ago
  Disposable credit card numbers have been around for decades. The user experience has historically been miserable. Maybe this will be better. Doubt it.
  - andrewdietrich 12y ago
    Absolutely, virtual cards have been around for years. But we've researched the space extensively and did not find a product we like or could use consistently. So we built Final. Some of the better products out there exist for customers outside of the US.
    - otoburb 12y ago
      >Some of the better products out there exist for customers outside of the US. Would appreciate if you could give some examples for non-US customers, at least for another point of comparison.
      - bobcostas55 12y ago
        In Sweden I can do this...you launch a desktop or phone app, tell it what limit you want on the card and when you want it to expire, and it gives you a number w/ CVC code that you can use instantly.
darkstar999 12y ago
bigboxesofwine.gov doesn't exist. I am disappoint. This is awesome though. It's like what 33mail.com does for email addresses, but even better.
- arfrank 12y ago
  We started working on all the sites but ran out of time...my favorite is http://deluxesweaters.biz http://deluxesweaters.biz
  - balls187 12y ago
    Well done. I paused the video to punch that into the URL. I'm excited to try out Final.
- bertil 12y ago
  Well, systembolaget.se and alko.fi do… Fantastic choice, exceptional service, and crazy expensive because the excise taxes are paying for the perfectly fine and very expensive education of Nordic children. Also, not available in the US. (Sorry, just left the country to start a new job in London, still under the shock of having cheap, good, strong alcohol in supermarkets.) More seriously, I think the sweater thing was a tease at a competitor (who's presentation include an awkward “Say you want to buy a nice sweater… — But I don't! — Let’s say you do!”). Then that-guy-who-makes-all-the-cool-product-videos got creative with URLs.
  - christiangenco 12y ago
    I was wondering if that was a conscious decision. Here's the competitor's video: https://www.plastc.com/card https://www.plastc.com/card Sweater comment starts 19 seconds in.
boca 12y ago
Interesting concept that solves an actual problem. It will be interesting to see what kind of pricing they will adopt. P.S. The button next to the "Reserve your card" looks pretty similar to Telegram's app icon.
crimsonalucard 12y ago
The guy in the video is the exact same person in the coin video. https://onlycoin.com/ https://onlycoin.com/ I'm really pissed off I paid for coin. I'm not going to pay a dime for plastc or this until it's released.
- vishalzone2002 12y ago
  Ya i noticed that too
- chrisbolt 12y ago
  See this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8313720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8313720
- than 12y ago
  http://sandwichvideo.com http://sandwichvideo.com
- general_failure 12y ago
  Sorry to hear. I am not in the know but what happenned to that company that pissed you off?
- mcdavis 12y ago
  It's Adam Lisagor whose video production company Sandwich Video works on lots of startup videos http://sandwichvideo.com/ http://sandwichvideo.com/
  - n72 12y ago
    Which I don't understand. All their stuff has such a hipster aesthetic. I'm not knocking the hipster aesthetic (I don't like it, but that's a whole different conversation), but it's certainly not an everyman aesthetic, which I would think one would want for an advertisement which is supposed to appeal to a wide audience. I'm sure other industries have put a ton of research into this and I assume this is why people in most ads are so ultra-generic. So, why go with these guys? Path of least resistance? Do people in SF not realize that the rest of the country is not like them? Do they think the rest of the country wants to be like them? This isn't snark, but genuine curiosity.
tkmcc 12y ago
> Tired of your monthly yoga pants subscription? Or a two-week "free" trial that lasted four months? Just deactivate that card number. It's that easy. I'm a little wary of this functionality. Although most responsible businesses just cancel the subscription after a declined payment, some will sic a debt collection agency on you because they claim you owe them the money. My Google-fu is failing me now, but I know I've read of this happening recently. I'm also wondering how the magnetic strip on the back works. Does that get changed with each swipe as well? That would be really nice functionality to have, though I understand the complexity of implementation.
- sp332 12y ago
  It's true, if you sign up for something, you're on the hook for paying for it. If your credit card doesn't work, that doesn't mean you're not in debt.
gtCameron 12y ago
Love the concept but I don't think I fully understand it. Am I opening a new credit card account with Final or is it a front end to my existing cards. If it's the former what kind of card is it (Visa, Mastercard, or something different)?
scotchio 12y ago
This is awesome! I love the idea and was actually discussing a couple months ago why this doesn't exist yet with current CC companies like AMEX or Visa. All these all-in-one "supercards" coming out are cool, but this is beyond cool and serves a real purpose. I imagine they'll add a sharing component to purchases eventually too. This way you just spin up a new credit card number that is split between a group of people (e.g.: at a dinner for the check) and set percentages for everyone. You no longer have to ask waiters to split bills, Venmo friends after, etc.
tzz 12y ago
This is similar to ShopSafe from Bank of America. ShopSafe let you create temporary reoccurring or single use CC number. https://www.bankofamerica.com/privacy/accounts-cards/shopsafe.go https://www.bankofamerica.com/privacy/accounts-cards/shopsaf...
maresca 12y ago
What happens when your generated number matches an existing number? Is there a finite amount of possible CC numbers?
- rtkwe 12y ago
  Do you mean a non Final number? That shouldn't happen since ever issuer is uniquely identified by the first 6 numbers on the card. For collisions with Final numbers they'll have to keep track of the numbers they've issued and if they have expired or not. Aren't online transactions validated with a combination of CC# and other details. They could use that to deepen their pool of numbers. They can also get multiple issuer numbers (the first 6 digits) giving them more numbers as well. Also temporary card numbers aren't completely new so they're probably drawing on existing solutions to collision issues.
Hortinstein 12y ago
how long before numbers get collisions? are revoked credit card numbers invalidated forever?
- slvrspoon 12y ago
  this is actually a serious issue were they to get popular and i wonder how Apple Pay is addressing it. the namespace is not that large.
rjf1331 12y ago
I can't help but think this must be vaporware. I worked in the credit card industry for several years. A credit card company is not something anybody can just start from scratch - you need data to model chargeoffs, fraud, spend, ect in order to be profitable. And unlike Robinhood, you need a source of capital to fund the cash you float, usually securitization or deposits. I may be completely wrong, but I simply don't buy it. There's so much more to a credit card product aside from the nice-sounding features they have on their landing pages.
- andrewdietrich 12y ago
  I'm happy to say that we're not vaporware. We're partnering with a bank that provides all of the pieces you mentioned. Our model is similar to that of Simple, which partnered with Bancorp Bank to launch their product.
  - kapnobatairza 12y ago
    I'm sorry to be so suspicious, but do you have ANY experience working with Chip & PIN? How are you reprogramming your physical card on the fly? When you make such bold claims, it is difficult to take any other part of your product seriously.
tdicola 12y ago
Am I crazy or doesn't this (temporary credit card numbers) already exist with a lot of major credit card vendors? I remember getting an Amex Blue card back in the early 2000's because it could do just that thing...
- jack-r-abbit 12y ago
  Same here. I recall it came with a USB card reader. You had to put the credit card into the reader to get the single use number... or something like that. The user experience was horrible. I don't think I actually ever got it to work. Surely things have improved since then though.
  - Gormo 12y ago
    I've got a Visa card from Bank of America. I can log into their website, generate a disposable credit card number on the fly -- specifying my own credit limit and expiration date -- and then just paste the card info into the website I'm ordering from. There's not a lot of friction in using this feature, and I use it all the time, so I find it pretty surprising that many people here seem to regard Final's implementation of the same thing as a brilliant innovation.
pkinsky 12y ago
Weird, their website seems to have the same color scheme as http://typesafe.com/ http://typesafe.com/.
jastanton 12y ago
Essentially your credit card number is like a transaction token now. If the token is compromised, no big deal the transaction is over and that token is no longer valid. But it has some backwards compatibility built in so you can re-use the token for systems that are setup to charge one number / token every month. Your credit card number is essentially an implementation detail of your card. Very cool.
felixvolny 12y ago
Am I really the only one to notice it says "Enter your emaill address"?
DangerousPie 12y ago
> Tired of your monthly yoga pants subscription? Or a two-week "free" trial that lasted four months? Just deactivate that card number. It's that easy. Is it really that easy though? Sure, they won't be able to charge you anymore but that doesn't mean that you didn't enter a binding contract. What you are suggesting here sounds neither legal nor ethical.
- arbitrage 12y ago
  What sounds unethical to me is incredibly one sided abusive contracts that are incredibly difficult to cancel, even with agreed upon terms. It sounds perfectly ethical to me. "I don't want to pay for goods and services I don't want to receive anymore". This is an idea that has been tested many many times in US case law, and therefore sounds perfectly legal as well.
  - Silhouette 12y ago
    What sounds unethical to me is incredibly one sided abusive contracts that are incredibly difficult to cancel, even with agreed upon terms. Nothing in the description on the site implied a one-sided, abusive contract. There is nothing inherently one-sided or abusive about either an ongoing subscription or a service that offers a free trial but automatically starts charging at the end of the trial period if you don't cancel. Obviously if the charging organisation is misleading it's a different matter, whether that was hiding or being deceptive about what would really be charged or offering a trial but then creating barriers to permitted cancellation. I don't know about the US, but here in Europe there are now some very one-sided (pro-consumer) rules about this kind of thing. However, if the deal was legit, knowingly using a card that won't stand up and thus avoiding payments genuinely due is fraud, pure and simple.
raesene4 12y ago
I really like this concept, it's great for using sites that you want to buy from but aren't too confident on their security, but it's not exactly new. I had virtual card number generators in the UK 5+ years ago with cahoot (unfortunately they shut that service down) and you can get this kind of thing with Entropay and similar providers at the moment. That said the app+management features look pretty nifty, so this could be a nice advancement of the concept.
namityadav 12y ago
I was very interested in something like this few years back. But, my quick research showed me that (a) A company called Orbiscom (acquired by MasterCard) had patents in this space [1], and they are the ones behind Bank of America's ShopSafe and a few other such services offered by various banks. (b) Almost all of those services (except for ShopSafe) are now discontinued. Which indicates that either users don't care about something like this, or that banks don't like offering something like this for some reason. Maybe that explains why nobody knows about MaskMe [2] etc. I would be curious how Final guys are overcoming those issues. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_payment_number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_payment_number [2] https://www.abine.com/maskme/features/cards/ https://www.abine.com/maskme/features/cards/
- arfrank 12y ago
  The industry goes much deeper than that, and there are many vendors that also issue virtual cards via other methods. Checkout Wex & Conferma for a few. A few big changes are happening on the backend of payments that we also plan on leveraging. See this spec if you want to learn more about them: http://www.emvco.com/specifications.aspx?id=263 http://www.emvco.com/specifications.aspx?id=263
  - andreyf 12y ago
    This is a slightly more accessible explanation: http://clover-developers.blogspot.com/2014/09/apple-pay.html http://clover-developers.blogspot.com/2014/09/apple-pay.html
downandout 12y ago
Chip and PIN, at least in the US, is useless right now because virtually no merchants have the equipment. As for the browser plugin that generates a unique number for each transaction, PayPal had this in 2008 and closed it down. I'm not exactly sure why, but if they couldn't make it work, I have my doubts about newcomers being successful with it. The one interesting thing this card can do is disable charging to the physical card number when it is seperated from the phone. Of course that will be annoying when someone wants to buy something after they have left their phone in the car or had their phone lost or stolen. It's also unclear if simply running out of battery on the phone would disable the card. If my understanding of their system is correct, it would.
- coldcode 12y ago
  CHip and PIN will be required in the US as of Oct 2015.
  - mcherm 12y ago
    Not quite. If I understand correctly, as of that date Chip and PIN will be encouraged, by charging higher fees to merchants when they fail to do a chip and PIN transaction.
    - dustinchilson 12y ago
      No just higher fees but the merchant becomes liable for fraudulent transactions processed without chip and pin. Whereas before the big card brands would cover more the risk and fees.
  - stock_toaster 12y ago
    I believe it is Chip and signature that will be required, not PIN.
    - aren55555 12y ago
      Canada already has chips on all our CCs - only ever place I ever need to sign a receipt is down here in the US. Chip and PIN not Chip and signature.
eastbayjake 12y ago
Ugh... I'm not doing the "There are X people ahead of you. Get access sooner by inviting your friends!" thing again. I got tricked into doing it for RobinHood.io over a year ago, convinced a bunch of friends to sign up, but there's still no product in sight.
benguild 12y ago
...Finally! Some innovation in the credit card industry just as people are starting to replace them with mobile phones.
bicknergseng 12y ago
"A credit card built for the 21st century" is an oxymoron. It's like saying a car phone built for the 21st century. For the love of all that is holy and sacred, please eliminate the need to carry cards at all. Just let me pay with my phone. Put my drivers license, health insurance card, membership cards, gift cards, car keys, and payment methods into my phone. All of this already exists in some form or another, but Apple and Google have utterly failed to make it work in the real world outside of a few outliers like Starbucks. It's 2014: there is no reason I should have to carry keys and a wallet when I have a modern cell phone. Eliminate paper receipts while you're at it; email them or aggregate in some other way digitally. Save 10 million trees.
- krapp 12y ago
  There are reasons - separation of concerns, for one. Having a single point of failure for your identity, access to all of your accounts and finances, and the locks on your car doors and home is a bad idea. Making that somehow mandatory is even worse. Because you wouldn't be putting them on the phone, you would be putting them in the cloud, and the companies running the servers and building the apps that monetize your locking and unlocking and spending and self-identifying activities will not be putting security first because they never do. I don't want my legal identity and physical security to depend entirely on cloud-driven Android apps, a contract and a working battery, thank you.
- jackmaney 12y ago
  Dear gods, please eliminate any ability to pay with my phone! Cards are fragile enough. I don't want to lose access to all of my money if I accidentally drop my phone the wrong way. EDIT: Not to mention my ID and keys! I'm honestly not sure I could think of a worse idea.
  - bicknergseng 12y ago
    For you, butterfingers. I've never accidentally destroyed a phone. I have left credit cards and wallets and IDs and keys at bars and hotels. I have had CC numbers used by scammers online, requiring I call my credit card company, figure out what expenses are fraudulent, cancel the card, and have them send another. Magnet strips die all the time. Then I am stuck without one for a week. New car keys are $500+. The DMV. Oh God, the DMV. A phone is not only trackable, but remote wipeable. Order a new one online and pick it up right then in a store or an Amazon same day box or something. All lost information restored in a few minutes via the internet.
powertower 12y ago
If you recognize the guy in the ad, he is the CEO of the ad company http://sandwichvideo.com/ http://sandwichvideo.com/
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bigethan 12y ago
Does this work with reward programs? Or is it's primary feature it's safety?
austinhutch 12y ago
No scrolljacking, beautiful colors, product screenshots, nice imagery and typography.. this is a successful execution of the ubiquitous "startup site" style. Not a comment on the product, but I had to commend you for getting this right when so many others get it wrong.
Fastidious 12y ago
Is anyone else experiencing "jumpy" page on the website?
wnevets 12y ago
Didnt paypal used to have virtual cc#s years ago?
- gtirloni 12y ago
  Used to, not anymore. They only offer a prepaid MC card now. https://www.paypal-prepaid.com/ https://www.paypal-prepaid.com/
  - wnevets 12y ago
    did they ever explain why they got rid of them?
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gtirloni 12y ago
Bank of Brazil (BB) released something very similar called Ourocard-e to all 33mi customers in April 2014. It's very cool this idea gaining more acceptance in other markets.
AznHisoka 12y ago
I want to invest. I have a feeling this is going to be acquired for billions for PayPal or a credit card company.
lhm 12y ago
I wonder if it would be possible to integrate this into existing online banking. Being able to use this through an existing bank account could be a good selling point to privacy-aware customers, at least in Germany.
JoshTriplett 12y ago
This looks like the right solution to work around the current craziness of sharing a single credit card number across all purchases. (An ideal solution would involve some kind of assymetric crypto for authorization, but this seems like the best we can do with the current credit card infrastructure.) The biggest question the FAQ doesn't answer: Will this interoperate with (at least one of) MasterCard, Visa, or American Express? Because if not, it isn't going to work with most merchants.
hackuser 12y ago
What about confidentiality: I assume you collect what I purchase, when, where, and the cost. What do you do with this data? (Of course this question applies to every credit card vendor, not only to Final.)
findjashua 12y ago
something I've always wanted, just wasn't sure if it was feasible enough to implement. If it works like in the video, great job guys! PS: am I imagining things or do all startup videos have the same actor?
kolev 12y ago
This guy! Again! :)
rafaqueque 12y ago
Using always the same guy for every single product launch is not that appealing. Specially when this guy also made the video about onlycoin.com. It's getting weird.
- deleted 12y ago
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ufo 12y ago
From what I understand, each 16-digit credit card number has 9 digits for the account number. With only 1-billion combinations don't you risk using up all the numbers if everyone gets a new number for every transaction?
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headgasket 12y ago
If anyone wondered why the same actor was used in the coin (www.onlycoin.com) intro video. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-12-05/adam-lisagor-silicon-valley-startups-favorite-video-director http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-12-05/adam-lisagor...
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wil421 12y ago
Are you going to release Coin?
Bud 12y ago
Final - A credit card built for the remaining 12 days until Apple Pay is released and instantly transforms this space.
nayefc 12y ago
Not only do they need to work with every single party in the ecosystem to succeed (they have no leverage), but have they heard of umm, Apple Pay and Visa's/MC/AMEX new TSP?
sdegutis 12y ago
Seriously. Just, no.
pbreit 12y ago
All these multi-number payment card offerings go against the age-old truism that it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission. If people really cared about avoiding a fraudulent transaction depleting their bank account, they would use credit cards instead of debit cards.
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- boristhespider 12y ago
  I think the screenshot is supposed to show someone using the Comcast website to pay with the Final browser extension.
- andor436 12y ago
  I think they're trying to show an example of how you can use their browser plugin to auto-fill payment forms.
  - spuiszis 12y ago
    misread that - thanks for the clarifying
dylchill 12y ago
This is neat idea, but I primarily use credit cards (over debit cards) for their benefits--in my case, airline miles. Why would I forfeit these benefits that save me hundreds of dollars a year in airline travel costs for this card?
drglitch 12y ago
As some have pointed out, Citi had this[1] since about 2004, Fleet/Bank of America [2] had it in their setup as well for as long as i can remember. The problem is going to be PCI compliance - the rules that govern merchant procedure for accepting physical credit cards. Specifically, the last 4 digits must be visually validated on the card and typed in to avoid cloned cards (chips largely solve this) in most stores. Furthermore, giving a new CC number to each transaction is going to deplete the pool of available CC numbers rather soon (as im sure everyone knows, CC number is not just random collection of 16 numbers 0-9). As other people pointed out, this solves a non-problem: if i don't want to be liable for a fraudulent purchase, i just use a credit card, not a debit card. In case of CC fraud, it is the MERCHANT who is responsible, not the customer or the bank. Monitoring software that flags "odd" purchases is all that's needed - and banks have been running such things for ages. Yes, there is hassle if your CC gets lifted/swiped, but chances are, its not an evil hacker doing it, but that cute waitress at your local bar with a $30 ghost reader in her hand. Unless the physical card generates a new number on EACH swipe, it is just another example of technology looking to complicate an otherwise streamlined process. /rant over :) [1] https://www.cardbenefits.citi.com/Products/Virtual-Account-Numbers.aspx https://www.cardbenefits.citi.com/Products/Virtual-Account-N... [2] http://lifehacker.com/5831160/use-virtual-credit-card-numbers-to-shop-safely-online-keeping-in-mind-the-downsides http://lifehacker.com/5831160/use-virtual-credit-card-number... [3] http://www.getcreditcardnumbers.com/ http://www.getcreditcardnumbers.com/
- shampine 12y ago
  Bank of America also has disposable numbers for their credit cards, one reason I still keep my card with them. You just pick how long the number is active for (min 1 month) and it spits out 16 digits. I use it for all my online transactions.
- dmdeller 12y ago
  The banks' monitoring software is in fact a hassle for me. I've only ever had legitimate purchases denied. The retailer's order flow is not usually optimised for this case, requiring a tedious, often manual process to get my order reinstated, while at the same time often causing the retailer to treat me with suspicion (they can't tell why the charge was denied the first time, and are sometimes reluctant or unable to retry the same card again). As far as I can tell, Final is not really about reducing fraud, which, as you correctly state, is mostly a non-problem for customers. Instead, its value is in increasing my personal convenience, by reducing the annoyances the credit card companies force me to deal with as a direct result of their absurdly outdated technology.
TheMagicHorsey 12y ago
My Bank of America credit card account has had this feature for years. Its called ShopSafe. I use it all the time.
aet 12y ago
As a U.S. citizen, next time I hear about a major credit card breach I will definitely relax as federal regulation limits my liability to $50 (and that is if the physical card is stolen). If only my credit card number is stolen, I have ZERO liability. http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0213-lost-or-stolen-credit-atm-and-debit-cards http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0213-lost-or-stolen-cre...
ShaneOG 12y ago
Will this be US only?
Silhouette 12y ago
Tired of your monthly yoga pants subscription? Or a two-week "free" trial that lasted four months? Just deactivate that card number. It's that easy. It really isn't, and you just publicly encouraged people to commit a criminal offence. Please talk to an actual lawyer before making that kind of statement, or your business is likely to be short-lived regardless of any other merit it has.
queryly 12y ago
Does unique throw-away card number really reduce fraud? If so, can't Visa/Mastercard implement them too?
Fargillsta 12y ago
Your links are a "disappearing light-blue color" so they don't fit in with the text very well (especially the privacy policy).
programminggeek 12y ago
Ok, so at what point do all these magic new credit card/meta credit cards just get bought up by AMEX, Master Card, or Visa?
slvrspoon 12y ago
we've been in this market for a year or more with masked cards: https://www.abine.com/maskme/features/cards/ https://www.abine.com/maskme/features/cards/ basically a better "paypal plugin" for those of you who used that. the principal is tokenization for not just credit cards but email, phone, etc. happy to answer any HN questions..
harel 12y ago
I don't know if its just me, but the person in the video looks very similiar (if not the same guy) from the Coin (https://onlycoin.com/ https://onlycoin.com/) video. Similar industry, similar beardy face?
invertedohm 12y ago
In the video, Adam glances at the guy behind him in line as he says "checking my statement for sketchy charges". Dude looks a lot like weev. Not sure if it's the guy himself, but that has to be intentional.
gojomo 12y ago
I want a next-generation payment card shoehorned into the same form-factor as legacy credit cards about as much as I want to access the internet with an acoustic modem. (Which is: only if there's absolutely no other way.)
vyrotek 12y ago
This is great! I've wanted this for years. I imagine this is pretty difficult to integrate and provide. I hope they can deliver.
instaheat 12y ago
This guy again? The Coin Guy?
WaxProlix 12y ago
But what kind of rewards program does it have
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
anvarik 12y ago
I remember this guy from somewhere... There was another product that creates a small display on your car window if I am not wrong
- hegivor 12y ago
  That product is Navdy and the guy in the video, Adam Lisagor, is indeed the same guy in the Final video. Lisagor's company Sandwich Video (http://sandwichvideo.com/ http://sandwichvideo.com/) produced both videos and countless others for startups, many of which he has appeared in.
staticelf 12y ago
The site doesn't say anything about if this will be available world wide or just in the us? Even so, I have used virtual credit cards for several years already as my bank provides a service for it. It works really neatly tbh even if the UI isn't as nice as in the video promotion.
urza 12y ago
This is alredy possible with https://dnt.abine.com/#dashboard https://dnt.abine.com/#dashboard
jafaku 12y ago
Too late, this is the century of Bitcoin.
octix 12y ago
How is this different from what BoA's ShopSafe? I've been using "virtual" cc for a few years now, that is the main reason I'm with BoA at the moment... The only thing is that it's a bit of hassle to use their tool. Also, I get a notification when my cc is used online or phone...
otakucode 12y ago
One question: Does it cut in 'payment processors' or other financial institutions for a percentage of every transaction? If so, then it has absolutely no place in this century. Transferring numbers does not get more difficult when the numbers are larger, and any percentage-based system is unjustifiable. Transferring numbers is also terribly easy now, so such a service does not even warrant a significant flat fee. We are rapidly moving toward a situation where virtually every single transaction in our economy gets skimmed by banks for 5% or so. This is giving a ridiculous amount of economic control to banks for absolutely no reason.
sfonyc 12y ago
If you have to partner with a bank can you guarantee the interest rate will be below 10%? Unless you're offering a 9% or lower rate for everyone and no annual fee this is not a truly customer friendly product, it's like every other bad bank. How can you say you're customer friendly if ANY customer has even a small risk of getting charged more than 10% interest.
wyclif 12y ago
Whatever happened to Simple?
chemmail 12y ago
Citi cards had this for a while, but got rid of it. It was quite nice, but needs more organization. Also the paypal model has it right. Even though I, like many others, loath paypal, I've been using them everywhere just to save time entering my CC. This doubles as security as merchant never get your CC in the first place. Apple pay will probably fix the organization of the random CC # generation. Final seems to be a little late in the game.
bibonix 12y ago
sounds like a great solution for chaotic credit card holders :) with a little bit of self-discipline you don't need this service
ludite313 12y ago
I want to hire the actor in this video, he is hilarious. Anyone know his name?

517 points by arfrank 12y ago

donniefitz2 12y ago

I have to say, the intro video for this was pretty good. Well done.

rbinv 12y ago
Done by Sandwich Video: http://sandwichvideo.com/ http://sandwichvideo.com/
w4 12y ago
It's made by Sandwich Video (who do great work): http://sandwichvideo.com/ http://sandwichvideo.com/ Notice the same guy in nearly every video.
- dublinben 12y ago
  He's really embracing the 'selling pickaxes' model of cashing in on a boom. Even if all the companies they've promoted fail, they've still been paid.
tambourine_man 12y ago
Honest question, what is it that people like about this persona often played by Adam Lisagor?
- panopticon 12y ago
  I don't quite understand it either; I find his videos to be slightly uncomfortable.
- vitamen 12y ago
  He feels anti-corporate, quirky but not annoyingly so. He absolutely has his own brand so where it once felt refreshing now it just feels sandwich, but it's not to a point where that's a bad thing.
leaveyou 12y ago
I watched the video only after I saw your remark and I have to agree. It's the first advertisement in ages that nearly got me interested into what they have to sell. I usually can't stand a classic video presentation.
- arfrank 12y ago
  Thank you! Adam is a creative genius who knows the right way to convey complex messages. It took many iterations to get it just right, but he's the real star here.

clarkmoody 12y ago

Huge feeling of déjà vu after having just watched the marketing video[1] for Slack yesterday. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6zVzWU95Sw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6zVzWU95Sw

arfrank 12y ago

CTO/Co-Founder of Final here. Final is what we built to take back control of our own credit cards for how and when we’re charged, instead of leaving it up to merchants. That led to merchant-specific numbers and limits, managed automatically, as well as transparency in statements. It’s our stake in the ground, a way to shift the culture in credit towards consumer friendliness. Happy to answer questions

Aloha 12y ago
Your signup link doesnt work with IE9, it just gives a page cannot be displayed error.
- arfrank 12y ago
  Thanks, looking into this right now.
  - ewoodrich 12y ago
    It also appears to have a typo: Enter your emaill address for early access...
    - arfrank 12y ago
      Thanks, editing the live code repo of our marketing site to make the CTA clearer
- johng 12y ago
  For nerds, we know to enter our email address into the box... but I would add some text above it for the regular folk who just say "wtf do I type into this box"
otoburb 12y ago
Will the physical card have a number embossed on it, similar to other cards? Or can the physical card number be changed in some way (e.g. Plastc's demo supposedly leveraging e-ink display on the card[1])? Also, does Final aim to become a credit card payments processor similar to Visa, Mastercard, et. al., or will you be leveraging a banking/credit institution in the backend to start with? [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8422928 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8422928

untog 12y ago

Having panned Plastc yesterday, this is like night and day - where Plastc is trying to solve "I have too many credit cards in my wallet" with an overdose of technology, Final is solving an actual real problem (credit card fraud) with an intelligent use of technology. In fact, I don't even want a physical card (chip and pin will make that difficult anyway), I just want an online service that will generate a new credit card number for me on demand. The budget tracking etc. is nice (and I understand why you want to add it for customer engagement and blah) but I'd love a totally stripped down service that gives me card numbers and pings me when they're used - and I would happily pay for it.

Fuzzwah 12y ago
I have had this via neteller for many years; one off mastercard numbers. Too bad they got caught up in the stupid anti-online poker bollocks a while back and can't service US customers.
mraison 12y ago
> I just want an online service that will generate a new credit card number for me on demand. I'm wondering why it's not more widespread. My (small) bank has been providing me a unique card number for every purchase for at least the last 5 years, and they're not usually on the cutting edge regarding banking technology. You can also give a maximum amount that can be withdrawn on the card, and once someone has withdrawn money using that number, no one else can do it.
- Karunamon 12y ago
  There's a service called MaskMe that offers on-the-fly credit cards like this. It's a paid service, but what they do is you right click on a field, and generate a new card number. This card is basically prepaid - the service provider charges your real card for whatever the value you say, and the person you're buying from gets the number you just created. Only real downside is that the generated cards are all MasterCard, and some merchants don't take anything but Visa.
eli 12y ago
Is credit card fraud a real problem for consumers? My experience has been that my number gets stolen and American Express overnights me a new card. It's mildly inconvenient to update my recurring billing info, but it's not something I feel like I need a product to solve.

Someone1234 12y ago

> Final lets you give a unique credit card number to every merchant, or a disposable one-time use number for one-off purchases. This is something I have been asking for since forever! People on here claimed it was "impossible" because of how credit cards work, I guess not... > Tired of your monthly yoga pants subscription? Or a two-week "free" trial that lasted four months? Just deactivate that card number. It's that easy. They need to be careful what they advise. That advice could (and likely WILL) result in people getting taken to collections. Don't like your ISP? Just cancel the CC number, then 12 months later get a bailiff turn up and seize your stuff...

pbreit 12y ago
Disposable credit card numbers have been around for decades. The user experience has historically been miserable. Maybe this will be better. Doubt it.
- andrewdietrich 12y ago
  Absolutely, virtual cards have been around for years. But we've researched the space extensively and did not find a product we like or could use consistently. So we built Final. Some of the better products out there exist for customers outside of the US.
  - otoburb 12y ago
    >Some of the better products out there exist for customers outside of the US. Would appreciate if you could give some examples for non-US customers, at least for another point of comparison.
    - bobcostas55 12y ago
      In Sweden I can do this...you launch a desktop or phone app, tell it what limit you want on the card and when you want it to expire, and it gives you a number w/ CVC code that you can use instantly.

darkstar999 12y ago

bigboxesofwine.gov doesn't exist. I am disappoint. This is awesome though. It's like what 33mail.com does for email addresses, but even better.

arfrank 12y ago
We started working on all the sites but ran out of time...my favorite is http://deluxesweaters.biz http://deluxesweaters.biz
- balls187 12y ago
  Well done. I paused the video to punch that into the URL. I'm excited to try out Final.
bertil 12y ago
Well, systembolaget.se and alko.fi do… Fantastic choice, exceptional service, and crazy expensive because the excise taxes are paying for the perfectly fine and very expensive education of Nordic children. Also, not available in the US. (Sorry, just left the country to start a new job in London, still under the shock of having cheap, good, strong alcohol in supermarkets.) More seriously, I think the sweater thing was a tease at a competitor (who's presentation include an awkward “Say you want to buy a nice sweater… — But I don't! — Let’s say you do!”). Then that-guy-who-makes-all-the-cool-product-videos got creative with URLs.
- christiangenco 12y ago
  I was wondering if that was a conscious decision. Here's the competitor's video: https://www.plastc.com/card https://www.plastc.com/card Sweater comment starts 19 seconds in.

boca 12y ago

Interesting concept that solves an actual problem. It will be interesting to see what kind of pricing they will adopt. P.S. The button next to the "Reserve your card" looks pretty similar to Telegram's app icon.

crimsonalucard 12y ago

The guy in the video is the exact same person in the coin video. https://onlycoin.com/ https://onlycoin.com/ I'm really pissed off I paid for coin. I'm not going to pay a dime for plastc or this until it's released.

vishalzone2002 12y ago
Ya i noticed that too
chrisbolt 12y ago
See this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8313720 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8313720
than 12y ago
http://sandwichvideo.com http://sandwichvideo.com
general_failure 12y ago
Sorry to hear. I am not in the know but what happenned to that company that pissed you off?
mcdavis 12y ago
It's Adam Lisagor whose video production company Sandwich Video works on lots of startup videos http://sandwichvideo.com/ http://sandwichvideo.com/
- n72 12y ago
  Which I don't understand. All their stuff has such a hipster aesthetic. I'm not knocking the hipster aesthetic (I don't like it, but that's a whole different conversation), but it's certainly not an everyman aesthetic, which I would think one would want for an advertisement which is supposed to appeal to a wide audience. I'm sure other industries have put a ton of research into this and I assume this is why people in most ads are so ultra-generic. So, why go with these guys? Path of least resistance? Do people in SF not realize that the rest of the country is not like them? Do they think the rest of the country wants to be like them? This isn't snark, but genuine curiosity.

tkmcc 12y ago

> Tired of your monthly yoga pants subscription? Or a two-week "free" trial that lasted four months? Just deactivate that card number. It's that easy. I'm a little wary of this functionality. Although most responsible businesses just cancel the subscription after a declined payment, some will sic a debt collection agency on you because they claim you owe them the money. My Google-fu is failing me now, but I know I've read of this happening recently. I'm also wondering how the magnetic strip on the back works. Does that get changed with each swipe as well? That would be really nice functionality to have, though I understand the complexity of implementation.

sp332 12y ago
It's true, if you sign up for something, you're on the hook for paying for it. If your credit card doesn't work, that doesn't mean you're not in debt.

gtCameron 12y ago

Love the concept but I don't think I fully understand it. Am I opening a new credit card account with Final or is it a front end to my existing cards. If it's the former what kind of card is it (Visa, Mastercard, or something different)?

scotchio 12y ago

This is awesome! I love the idea and was actually discussing a couple months ago why this doesn't exist yet with current CC companies like AMEX or Visa. All these all-in-one "supercards" coming out are cool, but this is beyond cool and serves a real purpose. I imagine they'll add a sharing component to purchases eventually too. This way you just spin up a new credit card number that is split between a group of people (e.g.: at a dinner for the check) and set percentages for everyone. You no longer have to ask waiters to split bills, Venmo friends after, etc.

tzz 12y ago

This is similar to ShopSafe from Bank of America. ShopSafe let you create temporary reoccurring or single use CC number. https://www.bankofamerica.com/privacy/accounts-cards/shopsafe.go https://www.bankofamerica.com/privacy/accounts-cards/shopsaf...

maresca 12y ago

What happens when your generated number matches an existing number? Is there a finite amount of possible CC numbers?

rtkwe 12y ago
Do you mean a non Final number? That shouldn't happen since ever issuer is uniquely identified by the first 6 numbers on the card. For collisions with Final numbers they'll have to keep track of the numbers they've issued and if they have expired or not. Aren't online transactions validated with a combination of CC# and other details. They could use that to deepen their pool of numbers. They can also get multiple issuer numbers (the first 6 digits) giving them more numbers as well. Also temporary card numbers aren't completely new so they're probably drawing on existing solutions to collision issues.

Hortinstein 12y ago

how long before numbers get collisions? are revoked credit card numbers invalidated forever?

slvrspoon 12y ago
this is actually a serious issue were they to get popular and i wonder how Apple Pay is addressing it. the namespace is not that large.

rjf1331 12y ago

I can't help but think this must be vaporware. I worked in the credit card industry for several years. A credit card company is not something anybody can just start from scratch - you need data to model chargeoffs, fraud, spend, ect in order to be profitable. And unlike Robinhood, you need a source of capital to fund the cash you float, usually securitization or deposits. I may be completely wrong, but I simply don't buy it. There's so much more to a credit card product aside from the nice-sounding features they have on their landing pages.

andrewdietrich 12y ago
I'm happy to say that we're not vaporware. We're partnering with a bank that provides all of the pieces you mentioned. Our model is similar to that of Simple, which partnered with Bancorp Bank to launch their product.
- kapnobatairza 12y ago
  I'm sorry to be so suspicious, but do you have ANY experience working with Chip & PIN? How are you reprogramming your physical card on the fly? When you make such bold claims, it is difficult to take any other part of your product seriously.

tdicola 12y ago

Am I crazy or doesn't this (temporary credit card numbers) already exist with a lot of major credit card vendors? I remember getting an Amex Blue card back in the early 2000's because it could do just that thing...

jack-r-abbit 12y ago
Same here. I recall it came with a USB card reader. You had to put the credit card into the reader to get the single use number... or something like that. The user experience was horrible. I don't think I actually ever got it to work. Surely things have improved since then though.
- Gormo 12y ago
  I've got a Visa card from Bank of America. I can log into their website, generate a disposable credit card number on the fly -- specifying my own credit limit and expiration date -- and then just paste the card info into the website I'm ordering from. There's not a lot of friction in using this feature, and I use it all the time, so I find it pretty surprising that many people here seem to regard Final's implementation of the same thing as a brilliant innovation.

pkinsky 12y ago

Weird, their website seems to have the same color scheme as http://typesafe.com/ http://typesafe.com/.

jastanton 12y ago

Essentially your credit card number is like a transaction token now. If the token is compromised, no big deal the transaction is over and that token is no longer valid. But it has some backwards compatibility built in so you can re-use the token for systems that are setup to charge one number / token every month. Your credit card number is essentially an implementation detail of your card. Very cool.

felixvolny 12y ago

Am I really the only one to notice it says "Enter your emaill address"?

DangerousPie 12y ago

> Tired of your monthly yoga pants subscription? Or a two-week "free" trial that lasted four months? Just deactivate that card number. It's that easy. Is it really that easy though? Sure, they won't be able to charge you anymore but that doesn't mean that you didn't enter a binding contract. What you are suggesting here sounds neither legal nor ethical.

arbitrage 12y ago
What sounds unethical to me is incredibly one sided abusive contracts that are incredibly difficult to cancel, even with agreed upon terms. It sounds perfectly ethical to me. "I don't want to pay for goods and services I don't want to receive anymore". This is an idea that has been tested many many times in US case law, and therefore sounds perfectly legal as well.
- Silhouette 12y ago
  What sounds unethical to me is incredibly one sided abusive contracts that are incredibly difficult to cancel, even with agreed upon terms. Nothing in the description on the site implied a one-sided, abusive contract. There is nothing inherently one-sided or abusive about either an ongoing subscription or a service that offers a free trial but automatically starts charging at the end of the trial period if you don't cancel. Obviously if the charging organisation is misleading it's a different matter, whether that was hiding or being deceptive about what would really be charged or offering a trial but then creating barriers to permitted cancellation. I don't know about the US, but here in Europe there are now some very one-sided (pro-consumer) rules about this kind of thing. However, if the deal was legit, knowingly using a card that won't stand up and thus avoiding payments genuinely due is fraud, pure and simple.

raesene4 12y ago

I really like this concept, it's great for using sites that you want to buy from but aren't too confident on their security, but it's not exactly new. I had virtual card number generators in the UK 5+ years ago with cahoot (unfortunately they shut that service down) and you can get this kind of thing with Entropay and similar providers at the moment. That said the app+management features look pretty nifty, so this could be a nice advancement of the concept.

namityadav 12y ago

I was very interested in something like this few years back. But, my quick research showed me that (a) A company called Orbiscom (acquired by MasterCard) had patents in this space [1], and they are the ones behind Bank of America's ShopSafe and a few other such services offered by various banks. (b) Almost all of those services (except for ShopSafe) are now discontinued. Which indicates that either users don't care about something like this, or that banks don't like offering something like this for some reason. Maybe that explains why nobody knows about MaskMe [2] etc. I would be curious how Final guys are overcoming those issues. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_payment_number http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_payment_number [2] https://www.abine.com/maskme/features/cards/ https://www.abine.com/maskme/features/cards/

arfrank 12y ago
The industry goes much deeper than that, and there are many vendors that also issue virtual cards via other methods. Checkout Wex & Conferma for a few. A few big changes are happening on the backend of payments that we also plan on leveraging. See this spec if you want to learn more about them: http://www.emvco.com/specifications.aspx?id=263 http://www.emvco.com/specifications.aspx?id=263
- andreyf 12y ago
  This is a slightly more accessible explanation: http://clover-developers.blogspot.com/2014/09/apple-pay.html http://clover-developers.blogspot.com/2014/09/apple-pay.html

downandout 12y ago

Chip and PIN, at least in the US, is useless right now because virtually no merchants have the equipment. As for the browser plugin that generates a unique number for each transaction, PayPal had this in 2008 and closed it down. I'm not exactly sure why, but if they couldn't make it work, I have my doubts about newcomers being successful with it. The one interesting thing this card can do is disable charging to the physical card number when it is seperated from the phone. Of course that will be annoying when someone wants to buy something after they have left their phone in the car or had their phone lost or stolen. It's also unclear if simply running out of battery on the phone would disable the card. If my understanding of their system is correct, it would.

coldcode 12y ago
CHip and PIN will be required in the US as of Oct 2015.
- mcherm 12y ago
  Not quite. If I understand correctly, as of that date Chip and PIN will be encouraged, by charging higher fees to merchants when they fail to do a chip and PIN transaction.
  - dustinchilson 12y ago
    No just higher fees but the merchant becomes liable for fraudulent transactions processed without chip and pin. Whereas before the big card brands would cover more the risk and fees.
- stock_toaster 12y ago
  I believe it is Chip and signature that will be required, not PIN.
  - aren55555 12y ago
    Canada already has chips on all our CCs - only ever place I ever need to sign a receipt is down here in the US. Chip and PIN not Chip and signature.

eastbayjake 12y ago

Ugh... I'm not doing the "There are X people ahead of you. Get access sooner by inviting your friends!" thing again. I got tricked into doing it for RobinHood.io over a year ago, convinced a bunch of friends to sign up, but there's still no product in sight.

benguild 12y ago

...Finally! Some innovation in the credit card industry just as people are starting to replace them with mobile phones.

bicknergseng 12y ago

"A credit card built for the 21st century" is an oxymoron. It's like saying a car phone built for the 21st century. For the love of all that is holy and sacred, please eliminate the need to carry cards at all. Just let me pay with my phone. Put my drivers license, health insurance card, membership cards, gift cards, car keys, and payment methods into my phone. All of this already exists in some form or another, but Apple and Google have utterly failed to make it work in the real world outside of a few outliers like Starbucks. It's 2014: there is no reason I should have to carry keys and a wallet when I have a modern cell phone. Eliminate paper receipts while you're at it; email them or aggregate in some other way digitally. Save 10 million trees.

krapp 12y ago
There are reasons - separation of concerns, for one. Having a single point of failure for your identity, access to all of your accounts and finances, and the locks on your car doors and home is a bad idea. Making that somehow mandatory is even worse. Because you wouldn't be putting them on the phone, you would be putting them in the cloud, and the companies running the servers and building the apps that monetize your locking and unlocking and spending and self-identifying activities will not be putting security first because they never do. I don't want my legal identity and physical security to depend entirely on cloud-driven Android apps, a contract and a working battery, thank you.
jackmaney 12y ago
Dear gods, please eliminate any ability to pay with my phone! Cards are fragile enough. I don't want to lose access to all of my money if I accidentally drop my phone the wrong way. EDIT: Not to mention my ID and keys! I'm honestly not sure I could think of a worse idea.
- bicknergseng 12y ago
  For you, butterfingers. I've never accidentally destroyed a phone. I have left credit cards and wallets and IDs and keys at bars and hotels. I have had CC numbers used by scammers online, requiring I call my credit card company, figure out what expenses are fraudulent, cancel the card, and have them send another. Magnet strips die all the time. Then I am stuck without one for a week. New car keys are $500+. The DMV. Oh God, the DMV. A phone is not only trackable, but remote wipeable. Order a new one online and pick it up right then in a store or an Amazon same day box or something. All lost information restored in a few minutes via the internet.

powertower 12y ago

If you recognize the guy in the ad, he is the CEO of the ad company http://sandwichvideo.com/ http://sandwichvideo.com/

deleted 12y ago

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bigethan 12y ago

Does this work with reward programs? Or is it's primary feature it's safety?

austinhutch 12y ago

No scrolljacking, beautiful colors, product screenshots, nice imagery and typography.. this is a successful execution of the ubiquitous "startup site" style. Not a comment on the product, but I had to commend you for getting this right when so many others get it wrong.

Fastidious 12y ago

Is anyone else experiencing "jumpy" page on the website?

wnevets 12y ago

Didnt paypal used to have virtual cc#s years ago?

gtirloni 12y ago
Used to, not anymore. They only offer a prepaid MC card now. https://www.paypal-prepaid.com/ https://www.paypal-prepaid.com/
- wnevets 12y ago
  did they ever explain why they got rid of them?

deleted 12y ago

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gtirloni 12y ago

Bank of Brazil (BB) released something very similar called Ourocard-e to all 33mi customers in April 2014. It's very cool this idea gaining more acceptance in other markets.

AznHisoka 12y ago

I want to invest. I have a feeling this is going to be acquired for billions for PayPal or a credit card company.

lhm 12y ago

I wonder if it would be possible to integrate this into existing online banking. Being able to use this through an existing bank account could be a good selling point to privacy-aware customers, at least in Germany.

JoshTriplett 12y ago

This looks like the right solution to work around the current craziness of sharing a single credit card number across all purchases. (An ideal solution would involve some kind of assymetric crypto for authorization, but this seems like the best we can do with the current credit card infrastructure.) The biggest question the FAQ doesn't answer: Will this interoperate with (at least one of) MasterCard, Visa, or American Express? Because if not, it isn't going to work with most merchants.

hackuser 12y ago

What about confidentiality: I assume you collect what I purchase, when, where, and the cost. What do you do with this data? (Of course this question applies to every credit card vendor, not only to Final.)

findjashua 12y ago

something I've always wanted, just wasn't sure if it was feasible enough to implement. If it works like in the video, great job guys! PS: am I imagining things or do all startup videos have the same actor?

kolev 12y ago

This guy! Again! :)

rafaqueque 12y ago

Using always the same guy for every single product launch is not that appealing. Specially when this guy also made the video about onlycoin.com. It's getting weird.

deleted 12y ago
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ufo 12y ago

From what I understand, each 16-digit credit card number has 9 digits for the account number. With only 1-billion combinations don't you risk using up all the numbers if everyone gets a new number for every transaction?

deleted 12y ago

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headgasket 12y ago

If anyone wondered why the same actor was used in the coin (www.onlycoin.com) intro video. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-12-05/adam-lisagor-silicon-valley-startups-favorite-video-director http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-12-05/adam-lisagor...

deleted 12y ago

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wil421 12y ago

Are you going to release Coin?

Bud 12y ago

Final - A credit card built for the remaining 12 days until Apple Pay is released and instantly transforms this space.

nayefc 12y ago

Not only do they need to work with every single party in the ecosystem to succeed (they have no leverage), but have they heard of umm, Apple Pay and Visa's/MC/AMEX new TSP?

sdegutis 12y ago

Seriously. Just, no.

pbreit 12y ago

All these multi-number payment card offerings go against the age-old truism that it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission. If people really cared about avoiding a fraudulent transaction depleting their bank account, they would use credit cards instead of debit cards.

deleted 12y ago

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boristhespider 12y ago
I think the screenshot is supposed to show someone using the Comcast website to pay with the Final browser extension.
andor436 12y ago
I think they're trying to show an example of how you can use their browser plugin to auto-fill payment forms.
- spuiszis 12y ago
  misread that - thanks for the clarifying

dylchill 12y ago

This is neat idea, but I primarily use credit cards (over debit cards) for their benefits--in my case, airline miles. Why would I forfeit these benefits that save me hundreds of dollars a year in airline travel costs for this card?

drglitch 12y ago

As some have pointed out, Citi had this[1] since about 2004, Fleet/Bank of America [2] had it in their setup as well for as long as i can remember. The problem is going to be PCI compliance - the rules that govern merchant procedure for accepting physical credit cards. Specifically, the last 4 digits must be visually validated on the card and typed in to avoid cloned cards (chips largely solve this) in most stores. Furthermore, giving a new CC number to each transaction is going to deplete the pool of available CC numbers rather soon (as im sure everyone knows, CC number is not just random collection of 16 numbers 0-9). As other people pointed out, this solves a non-problem: if i don't want to be liable for a fraudulent purchase, i just use a credit card, not a debit card. In case of CC fraud, it is the MERCHANT who is responsible, not the customer or the bank. Monitoring software that flags "odd" purchases is all that's needed - and banks have been running such things for ages. Yes, there is hassle if your CC gets lifted/swiped, but chances are, its not an evil hacker doing it, but that cute waitress at your local bar with a $30 ghost reader in her hand. Unless the physical card generates a new number on EACH swipe, it is just another example of technology looking to complicate an otherwise streamlined process. /rant over :) [1] https://www.cardbenefits.citi.com/Products/Virtual-Account-Numbers.aspx https://www.cardbenefits.citi.com/Products/Virtual-Account-N... [2] http://lifehacker.com/5831160/use-virtual-credit-card-numbers-to-shop-safely-online-keeping-in-mind-the-downsides http://lifehacker.com/5831160/use-virtual-credit-card-number... [3] http://www.getcreditcardnumbers.com/ http://www.getcreditcardnumbers.com/

shampine 12y ago
Bank of America also has disposable numbers for their credit cards, one reason I still keep my card with them. You just pick how long the number is active for (min 1 month) and it spits out 16 digits. I use it for all my online transactions.
dmdeller 12y ago
The banks' monitoring software is in fact a hassle for me. I've only ever had legitimate purchases denied. The retailer's order flow is not usually optimised for this case, requiring a tedious, often manual process to get my order reinstated, while at the same time often causing the retailer to treat me with suspicion (they can't tell why the charge was denied the first time, and are sometimes reluctant or unable to retry the same card again). As far as I can tell, Final is not really about reducing fraud, which, as you correctly state, is mostly a non-problem for customers. Instead, its value is in increasing my personal convenience, by reducing the annoyances the credit card companies force me to deal with as a direct result of their absurdly outdated technology.

TheMagicHorsey 12y ago

My Bank of America credit card account has had this feature for years. Its called ShopSafe. I use it all the time.

aet 12y ago

As a U.S. citizen, next time I hear about a major credit card breach I will definitely relax as federal regulation limits my liability to $50 (and that is if the physical card is stolen). If only my credit card number is stolen, I have ZERO liability. http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0213-lost-or-stolen-credit-atm-and-debit-cards http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0213-lost-or-stolen-cre...

ShaneOG 12y ago

Will this be US only?

Silhouette 12y ago

Tired of your monthly yoga pants subscription? Or a two-week "free" trial that lasted four months? Just deactivate that card number. It's that easy. It really isn't, and you just publicly encouraged people to commit a criminal offence. Please talk to an actual lawyer before making that kind of statement, or your business is likely to be short-lived regardless of any other merit it has.

queryly 12y ago

Does unique throw-away card number really reduce fraud? If so, can't Visa/Mastercard implement them too?

Fargillsta 12y ago

Your links are a "disappearing light-blue color" so they don't fit in with the text very well (especially the privacy policy).

programminggeek 12y ago

Ok, so at what point do all these magic new credit card/meta credit cards just get bought up by AMEX, Master Card, or Visa?

slvrspoon 12y ago

we've been in this market for a year or more with masked cards: https://www.abine.com/maskme/features/cards/ https://www.abine.com/maskme/features/cards/ basically a better "paypal plugin" for those of you who used that. the principal is tokenization for not just credit cards but email, phone, etc. happy to answer any HN questions..

harel 12y ago

I don't know if its just me, but the person in the video looks very similiar (if not the same guy) from the Coin (https://onlycoin.com/ https://onlycoin.com/) video. Similar industry, similar beardy face?

invertedohm 12y ago

In the video, Adam glances at the guy behind him in line as he says "checking my statement for sketchy charges". Dude looks a lot like weev. Not sure if it's the guy himself, but that has to be intentional.

gojomo 12y ago

I want a next-generation payment card shoehorned into the same form-factor as legacy credit cards about as much as I want to access the internet with an acoustic modem. (Which is: only if there's absolutely no other way.)

vyrotek 12y ago

This is great! I've wanted this for years. I imagine this is pretty difficult to integrate and provide. I hope they can deliver.

instaheat 12y ago

This guy again? The Coin Guy?

WaxProlix 12y ago

But what kind of rewards program does it have

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

anvarik 12y ago

I remember this guy from somewhere... There was another product that creates a small display on your car window if I am not wrong

hegivor 12y ago
That product is Navdy and the guy in the video, Adam Lisagor, is indeed the same guy in the Final video. Lisagor's company Sandwich Video (http://sandwichvideo.com/ http://sandwichvideo.com/) produced both videos and countless others for startups, many of which he has appeared in.

staticelf 12y ago

The site doesn't say anything about if this will be available world wide or just in the us? Even so, I have used virtual credit cards for several years already as my bank provides a service for it. It works really neatly tbh even if the UI isn't as nice as in the video promotion.

urza 12y ago

This is alredy possible with https://dnt.abine.com/#dashboard https://dnt.abine.com/#dashboard

jafaku 12y ago

Too late, this is the century of Bitcoin.

octix 12y ago

How is this different from what BoA's ShopSafe? I've been using "virtual" cc for a few years now, that is the main reason I'm with BoA at the moment... The only thing is that it's a bit of hassle to use their tool. Also, I get a notification when my cc is used online or phone...

otakucode 12y ago

One question: Does it cut in 'payment processors' or other financial institutions for a percentage of every transaction? If so, then it has absolutely no place in this century. Transferring numbers does not get more difficult when the numbers are larger, and any percentage-based system is unjustifiable. Transferring numbers is also terribly easy now, so such a service does not even warrant a significant flat fee. We are rapidly moving toward a situation where virtually every single transaction in our economy gets skimmed by banks for 5% or so. This is giving a ridiculous amount of economic control to banks for absolutely no reason.

sfonyc 12y ago

If you have to partner with a bank can you guarantee the interest rate will be below 10%? Unless you're offering a 9% or lower rate for everyone and no annual fee this is not a truly customer friendly product, it's like every other bad bank. How can you say you're customer friendly if ANY customer has even a small risk of getting charged more than 10% interest.

wyclif 12y ago

Whatever happened to Simple?

chemmail 12y ago

Citi cards had this for a while, but got rid of it. It was quite nice, but needs more organization. Also the paypal model has it right. Even though I, like many others, loath paypal, I've been using them everywhere just to save time entering my CC. This doubles as security as merchant never get your CC in the first place. Apple pay will probably fix the organization of the random CC # generation. Final seems to be a little late in the game.

bibonix 12y ago

sounds like a great solution for chaotic credit card holders :) with a little bit of self-discipline you don't need this service

ludite313 12y ago

I want to hire the actor in this video, he is hilarious. Anyone know his name?