10 ms·

At this point, I just want one of these pay-with-your-phone solutions to win and be ubiquitous. The current situation is almost comical. "Do you have Venmo? Ha

At this point, I just want one of these pay-with-your-phone solutions to win and be ubiquitous. The current situation is almost comical. "Do you have Venmo? Haven't set that up yet, can you send over Paypal?. No, what about Square Wallet? Nope, what about Gmail?"

TheSoftwareGuy 12y ago
At least Gmail & Facebook are pretty widely used already though
- FreakyT 12y ago
  Not their respective payment services, though. Receiving one of these Facebook payments won't work unless you've added a credit card to your Facebook.
- wongarsu 12y ago
  But with both Google and Facebook essentially being advertising companies a notable amount of people are hesitant to give them access to personal data. That could be a real hindrance to them becoming ubiquitous payment providers.
  - darkstar999 12y ago
    > a notable amount of people are hesitant to give them access to personal data. I bet this number is much lower than you think it is. People outside of the tech/hacker scene don't care about privacy (in this context). "Who cares if Facebook knows that I went to McDonalds?"
    - fizzbatter 12y ago
      I tend to agree with that, regardless. My general take is that i want life empowering features driven by data. Of course, i would prefer to not give X company my data, but until a home-brew solution comes to light it's unrealistic for me to expect privacy and these types of features. In the end, i want the features. I want Google Now (well, i want what it represents.. it still sort of sucks haha).
  - soylentcola 12y ago
    Honestly, if said data is used to generate some demographic profile in order to show me less irrelevant ads while still paying for these incredibly useful services, I don't terribly mind. Advertising has been around for a while but being able to guess what might apply means less reliance on sheer volume in order to get the same value from the "ad space". I completely understand the ways this can backfire (shadowy three-letter agencies stealing that profile info, leaks that reveal info that someone figures out how to tie to your identity, etc) but those things are already distinct possibilities with credit card companies, email providers, loyalty cards, medical records, and a host of other things. Leveraging information to create valuable services that would otherwise not be possible is probably not going away anytime soon. At least this way it's easy to split bar tabs or cab rides.
blhack 12y ago
Simple dominates all of these, in my opinion. It is perfect from a user experience side. (If people already have the service, but people really want the service for more than the mobile payments part)
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- superuser2 12y ago
  Simple is an entire bank/debit card. Square Cash, Venmo, etc can all be set up on your existing debit card. I certainly hope I don't have to switch banks to do mobile payments.
  - blhack 12y ago
    All of the other mobile payments things seem like they want to be your bank (but only sorta kinda sorta). Simple is just that. A bank (or rather, a banking services provider. Us bancorp is the actual bank). The tight integration with mobile payments, because of them also being a banking services provider, is absolutely flawless.
    - gress 12y ago
      I use Simple, and Square cash, and I have to say that Square Cash is far superior for sending money to friends.
- joshstrange 12y ago
  Simple lover here, I agree, I love being able to Simple Instant money to friends but I agree with the reply to your comment about how it's a bank and not a payment service. While I will stay will Simple for the foreseeable future (AMAZING customer support, beautiful app and website, goals, and instant transfer) I am somewhat disappointed in Simple as a company. They came out saying they were going to be a full bank and have an API and all of that and then backtracked on a lot of it. They are just a layer over an existing bank (which limits them somewhat) and there is still no API to be seen. Also it feels like improvements have been VERY slow coming. Goals finally got some much needed attention but it's still lacking. I have to do everything manually when my paycheck comes in because their goals come out daily. I don't get paid daily, why would I want that money coming out daily? I just want to set aside money for car/rent/insurance/etc when I get paid, maybe things like "wants" (a new TV, computer, etc) work better for the daily pull but even then I'd rather just set aside $XXX when I get paid through goals.
Yhippa 12y ago
Haven't the Japanese had NFC payments forever?
gk1 12y ago
"You owe me $20" "OK, hold on, here's an ATM." ... "Here you go."
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- bluetidepro 12y ago
  "Oh wait, that's not my bank's ATM. I don't want to be charged a $4 fee. Oh well, I'll get you next time." ATM's are not a good solution. I don't want to pay $24 to give someone $20 because of ATM fees. Or wait in a long line (assuming you are at a busy location/area) to get the money.
  - andrepd 12y ago
    Wait, there's a fee to withdraw money from ATMs? Never heard of such a thing.
    - fragmede 12y ago
      It is pretty much the default in the United States, but Wikipedia seems to say it exists around the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATM_usage_fees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATM_usage_fees
    - wongarsu 12y ago
      I hear it's pretty common in the US. I guess it has to do with the question who operates the ATM. In Germany it exists too if you use an ATM from a bank that's not partnering with your bank (which is ~50% of all ATMs and straightforward to figure out).
    - sp332 12y ago
      It depends on a lot of things. Some banks charge to withdraw from other banks' accounts. Some banks join "networks" and don't charge for others in the same network. Some ATMs are set up inside stores, and they charge money that goes to the store instead of a bank.
  - 12y ago
macNchz 12y ago
At least for my demographic in NYC it feels like Venmo has enough traction that there isn't much friction if you ask to be paid/pay with Venmo. Enough people have it that the odd one out who doesn't feels compelled to sign up, and the onboarding is also fast enough that people can sign up while waiting for the check at a restaurant, for example.
- fragmede 12y ago
  All that says is that Venmo has traction among your immediate peers. If Paypal/Square wallet/Bitcoin had the same traction, the rest of your comment would still be hold.
  - ecma 12y ago
    In fact this is just the second time I've heard about Venmo and I don't care remotely. My peer group is heavily PayPal based and therein lies the issue - fragmentation suddenly becomes painfully obvious when you try to pay someone you've not sent money to before or you go to a new store which has decided to use the new hotness which you've never even heard of.
  - macNchz 12y ago
    Sure, but that was really my point: I was just offering a tiny data point on the progress towards the goal that the person I was replying to expressed: > At this point, I just want one of these pay-with-your-phone solutions to win and be ubiquitous. I'm not saying this is a clear winner, just that Venmo is well on its way to ubiquity in this market, at least within my demographic/peer group. I'm fairly social, and I try to keep an eye on the tech that people I meet who don't work in tech are using, and Venmo certainly stands out in that regard.
    - XorNot 12y ago
      I live in Australia and have literally never heard of this service until right now. I think you are drastically overestimating its penetration.
squiguy7 12y ago
I wonder what incentives these new players have to provide a medium to transfer money on their platform? Why should I give my credit card to Facebook or Snapchat? It doesn't really make sense for me. I would much rather use a vendor that's sole purpose is to provide a means of money transferring. I don't need the convenience of typing a sigil followed by the amount to send money to friends. If I really can't electronically send them money, I will go out of my way to give them cash at a later date.
- Mandatum 12y ago
  Do one thing. Do it well. vs Do everything. Do it OK. Companies have always started in the former, and expanded to the latter to not only diversify their "investments" (using that very loosely), but increase revenue. It just makes sense. And from a tech company it makes sense in a world where internet banking is still only adopted by ~60% of consumers. (I know, surprised me too.)
nfoz 12y ago
I want the govt / central banks to do it.
- icebraining 12y ago
  Move to Ecuador :) http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-28992589 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-28992589
andrepd 12y ago
Don't forget about Bitcoin.
- ForHackernews 12y ago
  Hahaha, good one.
  - grubles 12y ago
    Instead, let's be dumbfucks[0] and use Facebook to send money! [0]http://www.businessinsider.com/embarrassing-and-damaging-zuckerberg-ims-confirmed-by-zuckerberg-the-new-yorker-2010-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/embarrassing-and-damaging-zuc...
    - ForHackernews 12y ago
      It's not an either-or proposition here. But let's get real, bitcoin combines the ease-of-use of sendmail.cf with the stable value of the Russian ruble.
      - grubles 12y ago
        So you think bitcoin is harder than: 1. Learning how to open a bank account (requires tons of personal information) 2. Learning how and why to use a debit/credit card (insecure) 3. Signing up for (requires e-mail) facebook and tying your credit card to it to send money ?
        ForHackernews 12y ago
        The point is that 95% of adults have already done #1 and #2 and half of #3, and they have experience giving their credit card info to other websites. Maybe if you were starting tabula rasa with eleven year old children who'd never had a bank account or used a website before, maybe then bitcoin would be easier (provided they didn't get hacked and have their coins stolen[0]). [0] https://twitter.com/Coinapult/status/577892916309291008 https://twitter.com/Coinapult/status/577892916309291008
koyote 12y ago
In the UK we have PayM which is set up by the banks. You simply load your bank's mobile app and send money to your mate using his phone number. It's pretty simple to set up and works across most major banks here.
- joshstrange 12y ago
  You have no idea how jealous I am of that and your whole SWIFT code system.... ACH is the worst and most things (this included) have to use gross "refund" hacks to send money to a user's debit card because ACH is so slow, unrecoverable, and a large number of people just give you a blank stare if you ask for their Routing + Account numbers.
- AtmaScout 12y ago
  That would be awesome to have here in the US.
- nissehulth 12y ago
  The Swedish equivalent is called Swish. The transfer is instant and all you need to know is the recipients phone number. Sender and recipient doesn't need to have the same bank. Swish got some bad press when Moxie noticed that they "borrowed" some code, but the system is easy to use and seems to work well. [1] http://blog.nullbyte.eu/open-curtains-in-swish-payments-service/ http://blog.nullbyte.eu/open-curtains-in-swish-payments-serv...
VLM 12y ago
The cognitive load is expensive. I had never heard of venmo until this thread although I've heard of the 20 or so competitors. A confuseopoly depends on an uninformed public. I'm sure there's some special reason for each of the 20 or so payment services, although I don't have the time and motivation to research. Confuseopolies are designed to screw the end user. So I'm inherently scared away from "payment services". Especially when simple cash is to fast, easy, incredibly cheap, and convenient. Where we're at right now with payment services is roughly 80s BBS or 90s walled garden legacy services. "Wow, if the whole world were on this BBS or on compuserv then the whole world could talk together... but no there's fifty BBSes in my LATA alone"
astazangasta 12y ago
It's bizzare that our financial sector is the largest area of the economy and yet has not managed to produce any innovation in this regard. Shouldn't banks be giving us easy ways to transfer money? Isn't this their function? Financial services?
- tuna-piano 12y ago
  Chase actually has a great solution, Chase QuickPay. Here in Chicago it is very popular. https://www.chase.com/online-banking/quickpay https://www.chase.com/online-banking/quickpay
  - Mister_Snuggles 12y ago
    Canada has a similar solution, but it works across all of the big banks. Chase's solution is only for Chase customers, though it appears that the recipient doesn't necessarily need to be a Chase customer. https://www.interac.ca/en/interac-etransfer/etransfer-detail https://www.interac.ca/en/interac-etransfer/etransfer-detail
  - chime 12y ago
    It's not limited to Chase. It's called clearXchange and was started by the 3 big banks (Chase, BoA, Wells Fargo) and is now extending to more: https://www.clearxchange.com/payments/member-banks https://www.clearxchange.com/payments/member-banks clearXchange allows account holders in any of the member banks to send funds to each other and it takes about 1-2 days after the first transaction. It also allows sending funds via cellphone. If you have a Wells Fargo account, you can send funds to a BoA account holder using just their phone number. I think the banks have done a horrible job of advertising this free no-strings-attached service.
- Mister_Snuggles 12y ago
  Here in Canada, I can do an email money transfer to virtually any financial institution. All the recipient needs to do is bank with one that supports it and use online banking. I don't know how innovative it is, but it works relatively well. https://www.interac.ca/en/interac-etransfer/etransfer-detail https://www.interac.ca/en/interac-etransfer/etransfer-detail
taytus 12y ago
Never heard of Venmo.
andrewstuart2 12y ago
It's inevitable: http://xkcd.com/927/ http://xkcd.com/927/

TheSoftwareGuy 12y ago

At least Gmail & Facebook are pretty widely used already though

FreakyT 12y ago
Not their respective payment services, though. Receiving one of these Facebook payments won't work unless you've added a credit card to your Facebook.
wongarsu 12y ago
But with both Google and Facebook essentially being advertising companies a notable amount of people are hesitant to give them access to personal data. That could be a real hindrance to them becoming ubiquitous payment providers.
- darkstar999 12y ago
  > a notable amount of people are hesitant to give them access to personal data. I bet this number is much lower than you think it is. People outside of the tech/hacker scene don't care about privacy (in this context). "Who cares if Facebook knows that I went to McDonalds?"
  - fizzbatter 12y ago
    I tend to agree with that, regardless. My general take is that i want life empowering features driven by data. Of course, i would prefer to not give X company my data, but until a home-brew solution comes to light it's unrealistic for me to expect privacy and these types of features. In the end, i want the features. I want Google Now (well, i want what it represents.. it still sort of sucks haha).
- soylentcola 12y ago
  Honestly, if said data is used to generate some demographic profile in order to show me less irrelevant ads while still paying for these incredibly useful services, I don't terribly mind. Advertising has been around for a while but being able to guess what might apply means less reliance on sheer volume in order to get the same value from the "ad space". I completely understand the ways this can backfire (shadowy three-letter agencies stealing that profile info, leaks that reveal info that someone figures out how to tie to your identity, etc) but those things are already distinct possibilities with credit card companies, email providers, loyalty cards, medical records, and a host of other things. Leveraging information to create valuable services that would otherwise not be possible is probably not going away anytime soon. At least this way it's easy to split bar tabs or cab rides.

blhack 12y ago

Simple dominates all of these, in my opinion. It is perfect from a user experience side. (If people already have the service, but people really want the service for more than the mobile payments part)

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
superuser2 12y ago
Simple is an entire bank/debit card. Square Cash, Venmo, etc can all be set up on your existing debit card. I certainly hope I don't have to switch banks to do mobile payments.
- blhack 12y ago
  All of the other mobile payments things seem like they want to be your bank (but only sorta kinda sorta). Simple is just that. A bank (or rather, a banking services provider. Us bancorp is the actual bank). The tight integration with mobile payments, because of them also being a banking services provider, is absolutely flawless.
  - gress 12y ago
    I use Simple, and Square cash, and I have to say that Square Cash is far superior for sending money to friends.
joshstrange 12y ago
Simple lover here, I agree, I love being able to Simple Instant money to friends but I agree with the reply to your comment about how it's a bank and not a payment service. While I will stay will Simple for the foreseeable future (AMAZING customer support, beautiful app and website, goals, and instant transfer) I am somewhat disappointed in Simple as a company. They came out saying they were going to be a full bank and have an API and all of that and then backtracked on a lot of it. They are just a layer over an existing bank (which limits them somewhat) and there is still no API to be seen. Also it feels like improvements have been VERY slow coming. Goals finally got some much needed attention but it's still lacking. I have to do everything manually when my paycheck comes in because their goals come out daily. I don't get paid daily, why would I want that money coming out daily? I just want to set aside money for car/rent/insurance/etc when I get paid, maybe things like "wants" (a new TV, computer, etc) work better for the daily pull but even then I'd rather just set aside $XXX when I get paid through goals.

Yhippa 12y ago

Haven't the Japanese had NFC payments forever?

gk1 12y ago

"You owe me $20" "OK, hold on, here's an ATM." ... "Here you go."

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
bluetidepro 12y ago
"Oh wait, that's not my bank's ATM. I don't want to be charged a $4 fee. Oh well, I'll get you next time." ATM's are not a good solution. I don't want to pay $24 to give someone $20 because of ATM fees. Or wait in a long line (assuming you are at a busy location/area) to get the money.
- andrepd 12y ago
  Wait, there's a fee to withdraw money from ATMs? Never heard of such a thing.
  - fragmede 12y ago
    It is pretty much the default in the United States, but Wikipedia seems to say it exists around the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATM_usage_fees https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATM_usage_fees
  - wongarsu 12y ago
    I hear it's pretty common in the US. I guess it has to do with the question who operates the ATM. In Germany it exists too if you use an ATM from a bank that's not partnering with your bank (which is ~50% of all ATMs and straightforward to figure out).
  - sp332 12y ago
    It depends on a lot of things. Some banks charge to withdraw from other banks' accounts. Some banks join "networks" and don't charge for others in the same network. Some ATMs are set up inside stores, and they charge money that goes to the store instead of a bank.
- 12y ago

macNchz 12y ago

At least for my demographic in NYC it feels like Venmo has enough traction that there isn't much friction if you ask to be paid/pay with Venmo. Enough people have it that the odd one out who doesn't feels compelled to sign up, and the onboarding is also fast enough that people can sign up while waiting for the check at a restaurant, for example.

fragmede 12y ago
All that says is that Venmo has traction among your immediate peers. If Paypal/Square wallet/Bitcoin had the same traction, the rest of your comment would still be hold.
- ecma 12y ago
  In fact this is just the second time I've heard about Venmo and I don't care remotely. My peer group is heavily PayPal based and therein lies the issue - fragmentation suddenly becomes painfully obvious when you try to pay someone you've not sent money to before or you go to a new store which has decided to use the new hotness which you've never even heard of.
- macNchz 12y ago
  Sure, but that was really my point: I was just offering a tiny data point on the progress towards the goal that the person I was replying to expressed: > At this point, I just want one of these pay-with-your-phone solutions to win and be ubiquitous. I'm not saying this is a clear winner, just that Venmo is well on its way to ubiquity in this market, at least within my demographic/peer group. I'm fairly social, and I try to keep an eye on the tech that people I meet who don't work in tech are using, and Venmo certainly stands out in that regard.
  - XorNot 12y ago
    I live in Australia and have literally never heard of this service until right now. I think you are drastically overestimating its penetration.

squiguy7 12y ago

I wonder what incentives these new players have to provide a medium to transfer money on their platform? Why should I give my credit card to Facebook or Snapchat? It doesn't really make sense for me. I would much rather use a vendor that's sole purpose is to provide a means of money transferring. I don't need the convenience of typing a sigil followed by the amount to send money to friends. If I really can't electronically send them money, I will go out of my way to give them cash at a later date.

Mandatum 12y ago
Do one thing. Do it well. vs Do everything. Do it OK. Companies have always started in the former, and expanded to the latter to not only diversify their "investments" (using that very loosely), but increase revenue. It just makes sense. And from a tech company it makes sense in a world where internet banking is still only adopted by ~60% of consumers. (I know, surprised me too.)

nfoz 12y ago

I want the govt / central banks to do it.

icebraining 12y ago
Move to Ecuador :) http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-28992589 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-28992589

andrepd 12y ago

Don't forget about Bitcoin.

ForHackernews 12y ago
Hahaha, good one.
- grubles 12y ago
  Instead, let's be dumbfucks[0] and use Facebook to send money! [0]http://www.businessinsider.com/embarrassing-and-damaging-zuckerberg-ims-confirmed-by-zuckerberg-the-new-yorker-2010-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/embarrassing-and-damaging-zuc...
  - ForHackernews 12y ago
    It's not an either-or proposition here. But let's get real, bitcoin combines the ease-of-use of sendmail.cf with the stable value of the Russian ruble.
    - grubles 12y ago
      So you think bitcoin is harder than: 1. Learning how to open a bank account (requires tons of personal information) 2. Learning how and why to use a debit/credit card (insecure) 3. Signing up for (requires e-mail) facebook and tying your credit card to it to send money ?
      - ForHackernews 12y ago
        The point is that 95% of adults have already done #1 and #2 and half of #3, and they have experience giving their credit card info to other websites. Maybe if you were starting tabula rasa with eleven year old children who'd never had a bank account or used a website before, maybe then bitcoin would be easier (provided they didn't get hacked and have their coins stolen[0]). [0] https://twitter.com/Coinapult/status/577892916309291008 https://twitter.com/Coinapult/status/577892916309291008

koyote 12y ago

In the UK we have PayM which is set up by the banks. You simply load your bank's mobile app and send money to your mate using his phone number. It's pretty simple to set up and works across most major banks here.

joshstrange 12y ago
You have no idea how jealous I am of that and your whole SWIFT code system.... ACH is the worst and most things (this included) have to use gross "refund" hacks to send money to a user's debit card because ACH is so slow, unrecoverable, and a large number of people just give you a blank stare if you ask for their Routing + Account numbers.
AtmaScout 12y ago
That would be awesome to have here in the US.
nissehulth 12y ago
The Swedish equivalent is called Swish. The transfer is instant and all you need to know is the recipients phone number. Sender and recipient doesn't need to have the same bank. Swish got some bad press when Moxie noticed that they "borrowed" some code, but the system is easy to use and seems to work well. [1] http://blog.nullbyte.eu/open-curtains-in-swish-payments-service/ http://blog.nullbyte.eu/open-curtains-in-swish-payments-serv...

VLM 12y ago

The cognitive load is expensive. I had never heard of venmo until this thread although I've heard of the 20 or so competitors. A confuseopoly depends on an uninformed public. I'm sure there's some special reason for each of the 20 or so payment services, although I don't have the time and motivation to research. Confuseopolies are designed to screw the end user. So I'm inherently scared away from "payment services". Especially when simple cash is to fast, easy, incredibly cheap, and convenient. Where we're at right now with payment services is roughly 80s BBS or 90s walled garden legacy services. "Wow, if the whole world were on this BBS or on compuserv then the whole world could talk together... but no there's fifty BBSes in my LATA alone"

astazangasta 12y ago

It's bizzare that our financial sector is the largest area of the economy and yet has not managed to produce any innovation in this regard. Shouldn't banks be giving us easy ways to transfer money? Isn't this their function? Financial services?

tuna-piano 12y ago
Chase actually has a great solution, Chase QuickPay. Here in Chicago it is very popular. https://www.chase.com/online-banking/quickpay https://www.chase.com/online-banking/quickpay
- Mister_Snuggles 12y ago
  Canada has a similar solution, but it works across all of the big banks. Chase's solution is only for Chase customers, though it appears that the recipient doesn't necessarily need to be a Chase customer. https://www.interac.ca/en/interac-etransfer/etransfer-detail https://www.interac.ca/en/interac-etransfer/etransfer-detail
- chime 12y ago
  It's not limited to Chase. It's called clearXchange and was started by the 3 big banks (Chase, BoA, Wells Fargo) and is now extending to more: https://www.clearxchange.com/payments/member-banks https://www.clearxchange.com/payments/member-banks clearXchange allows account holders in any of the member banks to send funds to each other and it takes about 1-2 days after the first transaction. It also allows sending funds via cellphone. If you have a Wells Fargo account, you can send funds to a BoA account holder using just their phone number. I think the banks have done a horrible job of advertising this free no-strings-attached service.
Mister_Snuggles 12y ago
Here in Canada, I can do an email money transfer to virtually any financial institution. All the recipient needs to do is bank with one that supports it and use online banking. I don't know how innovative it is, but it works relatively well. https://www.interac.ca/en/interac-etransfer/etransfer-detail https://www.interac.ca/en/interac-etransfer/etransfer-detail

taytus 12y ago

Never heard of Venmo.

andrewstuart2 12y ago

It's inevitable: http://xkcd.com/927/ http://xkcd.com/927/