4 ms·

Text Your Bill Venmo.com

10 points by keltecp11 17y ago

ivankirigin 17y ago
I know the guys that make it, and they're solid. Check it out: http://venmo.com http://venmo.com It has been done before, but it hasn't caught on yet in the US. I'm not sure why. It does fine elsewhere - but the configuration is usually through the carrier.
- andreyf 17y ago
  I'm not sure why. This isn't US-specific, but according to the PayPal interview in Founders at Work, the problem is fraud.
  - ivankirigin 17y ago
    Well, I would trust a notification of a text message than a submission of a form from a potentially phished account. Then the issue is stolen cards, and ramp-up of merchants and payers is a good way to limit risk. I think this is a user issue. People don't currently pay with there phones. There are a bunch of options for it.
    - ivey 17y ago
      Stolen cards is a huge issue. I actually think being a smaller "Penn students and surrounding businesses" type of play would make it easier...there's less incentive for the online-only stolen card gangs to take over.
- covercash 17y ago
  Even PayPal has PayPal Mobile: http://www.crunchbase.com/product/paypal-mobile http://www.crunchbase.com/product/paypal-mobile Venmo has been getting quite a bit of buzz lately in my circles so I'm sure they're on PayPal's radar.
rishi 17y ago
Pretty Cool. But what happens if you don't have a venmo account and you pay the restaurant and then decide when you get home not to create an account? Do they somehow charge you through your phone bill?
- pwmanagerdied 17y ago
  Like most services, you need to be registered and have payment methods set up before you can make payments.
  - iqram 17y ago
    As a first time user, you can actually complete your purchase at the point of purchase. There's no pre-registration required and through texting and a phone call you can add your payment information and notify the restaurant of your payment.
    - pwmanagerdied 17y ago
      Ah, I didn't realize that you could add payment info from your phone. I'm not sure how safe I'd feel about that.
rflrob 17y ago
How does Venmo make money off of this? Do they charge the sender? In the article, a vendor says, "they’re not charging us any transaction fee"
dbrown26 17y ago
It appears that they take payments in as deposits and then disburse the money when another user requests a withdrawal. This requires either a bank charter or a designation as a money transfer agency. Without one of those, they are running an unlicensed bank. You cannot hold the money as an intermediary in the US without satisfying one of those requirements. I don't see anything on the site about either one of them, but knowing at least a little about the capital requirements needed to get one or both of those I would doubt that they have them. Please correct me if I am wrong, I think mobile payments is an idea who's time is past due but its very difficult to pull off in the US.

10 points by keltecp11 17y ago

I know the guys that make it, and they're solid. Check it out: http://venmo.com http://venmo.com It has been done before, but it hasn't caught on yet in the US. I'm not sure why. It does fine elsewhere - but the configuration is usually through the carrier.

andreyf 17y ago
I'm not sure why. This isn't US-specific, but according to the PayPal interview in Founders at Work, the problem is fraud.
- ivankirigin 17y ago
  Well, I would trust a notification of a text message than a submission of a form from a potentially phished account. Then the issue is stolen cards, and ramp-up of merchants and payers is a good way to limit risk. I think this is a user issue. People don't currently pay with there phones. There are a bunch of options for it.
  - ivey 17y ago
    Stolen cards is a huge issue. I actually think being a smaller "Penn students and surrounding businesses" type of play would make it easier...there's less incentive for the online-only stolen card gangs to take over.
covercash 17y ago
Even PayPal has PayPal Mobile: http://www.crunchbase.com/product/paypal-mobile http://www.crunchbase.com/product/paypal-mobile Venmo has been getting quite a bit of buzz lately in my circles so I'm sure they're on PayPal's radar.

rishi 17y ago

Pretty Cool. But what happens if you don't have a venmo account and you pay the restaurant and then decide when you get home not to create an account? Do they somehow charge you through your phone bill?

pwmanagerdied 17y ago
Like most services, you need to be registered and have payment methods set up before you can make payments.
- iqram 17y ago
  As a first time user, you can actually complete your purchase at the point of purchase. There's no pre-registration required and through texting and a phone call you can add your payment information and notify the restaurant of your payment.
  - pwmanagerdied 17y ago
    Ah, I didn't realize that you could add payment info from your phone. I'm not sure how safe I'd feel about that.

rflrob 17y ago

How does Venmo make money off of this? Do they charge the sender? In the article, a vendor says, "they’re not charging us any transaction fee"

dbrown26 17y ago

It appears that they take payments in as deposits and then disburse the money when another user requests a withdrawal. This requires either a bank charter or a designation as a money transfer agency. Without one of those, they are running an unlicensed bank. You cannot hold the money as an intermediary in the US without satisfying one of those requirements. I don't see anything on the site about either one of them, but knowing at least a little about the capital requirements needed to get one or both of those I would doubt that they have them. Please correct me if I am wrong, I think mobile payments is an idea who's time is past due but its very difficult to pull off in the US.