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Comment by binarymax | Hacker News Reader

Really cool! What's the biggest differentiator between Sequin and a secured credit card? Me and my wife used the latter as the first step to help build our credit history...but admittedly the limit was small.

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Secured cards have high deposits ($200+) and can still get you into debt if you don't pay back / pay min / pay late - affects women more than men.

> can still get you into debt if you don't pay back / pay min / pay late

How exactly is your card different? Is there no obligation to make payments? If so, how many cards can I open?

We connect to your existing bank account and make the payments automatically to build credit. Traditional debit cards do not do this.

That is exactly what debit cards do. When you make a purchase the money is withdrawn from your account.

The only novel thing here is you are deceiving the processing networks by claiming your debit card is a credit card. My credit union tried to do the same thing many years ago (as a way to build credit for students) and it eventually got caught by the processing networks and recategorized. Within a month or two it dropped off everyone's credit reports and they were back to square one.

Sequin fronts the money to the merchant and pays ourselves back automatically from a connected bank account (unlike traditional debit cards).

We are an official Visa partner and deal directly with credit bureaus.

From my reading, you're spending your own money, but to the credit tracking side, it looks like you're spending on credit and paying it back without incurring a fee. Clever idea, as long as the credit system continues to work like this.

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