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Comment by mmettler | Hacker News Reader

Hi gang, this is Mike from card.io.

socmoth, CrazedGeek, and tbgvi are right that this is considered a CNP transaction and rates are higher. However, our focus is on mobile developers, not retail merchants. By taking friction out of the mobile checkout flow for those developers (because customers don't have to type out their cc number), conversions are higher, and thus revenues are higher.

Regarding the user experience: folks are used to scanning barcodes with RedLaser, business cards with CardMunch, and checks with PayPal and the Chase mobile app. If we can make credit card purchasing easy and fast on the phone, that's a good user experience.

Thanks for the feedback!

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This is completely from left field, but should you ever move the project to an alternate domain name, card.io would be a perfect domain for a fitness-related app focusing on cardio workouts.

I can see the title on HN: "Card.io - fast and easy workouts"

I honestly thought that this was a fitness related site. I can't help but still think of it that way even though I know what it is now.

I also thought it was going to be fitness-related.

CardMuch, Checks are both examples of me taking a picture of something I own (check, biz card) using my own cell phone. Card.io is someone else taking a picture of my credit card, using their cell phone. In the first two examples, I have control and ownership. In the last example, I have ownership (of the data/card) but no control of the software.

Anything that increases conversions is great! Best of luck! I look forward to seeing it in the wild. In fact, are there any merchants in SF I can watch use it yet?

It seems to me that all this app does is OCR your name/number/date, instead of having you type it in. I'm sure there will be some users who will be wary of it, but it's not like it can get any more info than you would type into a game or whatnot.

Of course, I'm not sure how this is useful, since I understand that in-app purchases need to be tied to the App Store account, but it might be more useful for Android.

Thanks! We're working with mobile app developers, not retailers or physical merchants. So, instead of typing in your card number into a purchase form, you'll just scan your card from your own phone. We'll have more info about developer partners soon!

I may be wrong, but I believe the premise behind card.io is that you buy something in an app (a good old in app purchase), and instead of typing in all your credit card info, you simply take a picture of your credit card for payment.

Doesn't seem that card.io is trying to get merchants to use this as a Square replacement at this point.

timjahn, you're right (I've seen it in action). Users will be scanning their own cards for purchases made on third party apps. It's really slick.

Invariably, anytime someone writes "simply" what they mean is "quite a bit clumsier than the alternative".

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