Hacker News Reader

Comment by bit_logic | Hacker News Reader

This seems like a missed opportunity for Google Pay and Apple Pay. Before smartphones and NFC, it would've been too much for every merchant to make their own card, nobody is going to carry that many cards.

But imagine if Target, Walmart, Best Buy, etc. made store cards and they all integrated with Google/Apple Pay. When a customer enters the store, the app could automatically pick the right card. Google and Apple just needs to be cheaper than the rates charged by Visa/MC/Discover/Amex.

For example, I have a Target Redcard. Why isn't this card integrated with Google/Apply Pay? They've already setup the financial infrastructure to extend credit to customers. It should be a small step to add this to Apple/Google Pay.

View on HN

Target's RedCard is a significant advantage they've built over all their competitors. They don't have to pay the fees, customers get a discount, and they get easy access to the data on your purchases. I'm surprised more retailers don't do it.

Many retailers have their own cards: https://wallethub.com/credit-cards/store/

It's easy to forget too that the history of credit cards was that they started as store credit cards, and centralized and inter-operated from there. When credit cards first started you would have one per store only usable in that same store.

(Also note how gift cards/stored value cards/"prepaid credit" cards recently seem to be following a similar trajectory. It is somewhat fascinating.)

Or just a new payment system in general, based on asymmetric cryptography and message signatures. I'd love to generate a key, enroll the key with my bank, and have them authorize transactions signed by said key. This would be similar to have you enroll an ssh key at GitHub.

The problem with the credit card number system is the lack of authentication. Anyone you pay with a credit card can take a picture of the numbers and go spend wildly online.

that's pretty much what EMV is. as for offline transactions, TANs are more user friendly.

So many merchants do have their own cards, many offer incentives better than available rewards cards, but managing more than a handful of accounts quickly gets very tedious. Especially if you move, or change your checking account, or otherwise need to notify all your accounts.

Banks could innovate here. Such as offering credit accounts shared by store cards. That would simplify billing and account management. The concept of credit accounts and store cards could be completely separated. Signing up for a new store card would be just pointing it to an existing credit account.

Isn't that essentially what Visa et all do?

Starbucks is absolutely ahead of the curve on this one, and its a system that every major retailer should probably investigate.

What I don't want to do is have an app installed for every retailer. But if they integrate with Apple/Google Pay then I'm all for it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com