We're doing for payments what MP3s did for CDs
willgrant.org
willgrant.org
>If you think of the internet as just a series of pipes; then it’s what you push down those pipes that matters.
That should be a comma, not a semicolon. Semicolons are used for separating related independent clauses.
I know it doesn't really matter, but when it's the first sentence it really stands out.
I know how silly this is, but now you see what happens when you get too focused in grammatical mistakes.
This can be a pernicious source of errors of communication. It is good to point it out.
Sorry.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semicolon#Usage
Nevertheless, I also do not take kindly to semicolon usage, because it's so vague. But that does not mean I can claim that it's wrong, without being wrong myself.
In your example, "then" is the conjunctive adverb.
Edit: By the way, I love having grammar discussions on the internet. Let's make a grammar discussion club, so we can really go at it, and maybe try and keep the grammatic national socialism out of hackernews.
Well played -- by way of elaboration, a deft avoidance of Godwin's Law.
But why would merchants or users prefer this solution? why not just use the credit card? Perhaps these kinds of ideas are what pg calls made-up startup ideas.
And if someone steals your phone (hopefully) you have a pattern to unblock it and before the thief can crack it you cancel the app account or change its password.
Admittedly, this startup is based in the UK, where most consumers have several credit cards.
http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/credit-cards-aro...
This does not depend on a payment method, the problem is the time delay between sending money and sending the goods - especially goods delivery not being instantaneous. So without an escrow service there will be this kind of fraud, and someone will want his money back.
[edit] And people will not only send to friends if you are successful.
The larger segments are (1)I pay you for a laptop with a stolen credit card. You send me the laptop. The credit card company takes the money back off you. and (2) I pay you for a laptop with a stolen credit card. You send me the laptop. I say you sent me a brick. The credit card company takes the money back off you.
Accepting it might be free, but what happens when you need to transfer large amounts of cash from your premises to a bank? Cash-in-transit services aren't free.
> With cash fraud prevention is unnecessary.
Not if we include the identification and rejection of counterfeit currency.
What about the costs of storing cash? What about the costs of going to the bank and depositing cash? What about the transport and storage of storing low denomination notes/coins so you can give change? What about the costs & risks of being robbed of your cash? What about the costs of a staff member being robbed of the cash?
Accepting cash is not free.
With cash fraud prevention is unnecessary.
Ever seen a fake note? A fake coin (yes they exist)? What about a coin from a foreign country that looks like one of your coins, but is worth a fraction of the amount? What about the costs of the little ultraviolet light to check notes for legitimacy? What about the cost of the few seconds the cashier needs to look at each note to check that it's not a fake? What about the costs of the little highlighter pen they can run across it?
Fraud preventing for cash isn't free.
Of course, this probably isn't something the bank makes money on. They make money on fees for overdrafts, and on the profit making products they can more easily sell to existing customers. But the same thing happens in the US, too.
In short, don't assume that the massive flaws in US consumer banking are universal, or that they're fundamental to the nature of consumer banking.
Remember we're talking about accepting payments here, not opening a bank account. And if free online transfers are so viable for this, why do hardly any UK online merchants accept it as a form of payment and almost all accept the usual credit cards and Paypal? My guess: fraud /risk management and scale.
In traditional banking, you put money into savings and get a low return interest rate, or you commit to leave your deposit for a longer term to get a higher rate of return (Certificate of Deposit or "CD.") The reason this works is that the bank can now leverage your deposit with the Federal Reserve to borrow money to loan to others. So they take the interest the Fed charges, add some percentage to compensate depositors, add more to make a profit, and charge the consumer borrower a certain interest rate.
Some banks offer interest on their draft accounts (usually called "checking" accounts) but not many. And lots still charge a monthly fee for the privilege of keeping your money with then if your balance falls under a certain percentage.
So are you people saying this company is in the loan business? Or that their bank is providing them with an interest-bearing account for operating their business within? In the latter case, the margin would be so thin as to me non-existant.
Not debating the rest of your post, but in lots of European countries you will find the exact opposite. That is, almost noone provides zero-interest accounts. Because those who didn't give interests, even on checking-accounts, quickly found themselves losing most of their customers. Basically markets and competition in action as they should work.
So don't be too eager to extrapolate the (reasonably backwards, technologically under-developed and un-modern) US banking industry to a global de-facto statement. It usually doesn't hold ;)
I mean... You guys still use cheques. What's up with that?
Which is not to say that the US banking industry isn't backwards and bizarre.
Only old women do that. Usually while in front of you when attempting to pay the cashier.
So do the French. Cheques are very convenient in several usecases. For safety deposits they're brilliant: You write the owner a cheque for X hundred euros or whatever, and if at the end of your holiday all is good, he gives it back and you tear it up. They're also great for paying largish sums of money to people who don't have credit card machines (when buying second hand goods for example)
The more pertinent fact in respect of your question is that while your funds are being held in this state, the interest available accumulates to the originator A. Not your account from which the fund was withdrawn.
By all means tout the security benefits of the encryption you use, but I don't think the other two points (vetted personal and different bank accounts for internal/customer use) are really necessary from a customer perspective.
I don't think I would have considered either of those as potential security risks before reading them on your homepage. Reading them plants seeds of doubt in my mind; Why do they vet personnel? Because they have access to my payment details? What if the vetting isn't good enough? Why do they point out they have separate bank accounts; are they planning on going under?
The measures that you have taken re: those two points should be taken as given for any established payments processing business.
"What happens if I want to take my money back out?
To take your money out of Droplet to your personal bank account you need to have Direct Debit enabled. This is a feature that’s coming soon, so during Beta you’ll need to contact us and we’ll send you the funds by bank transfer within five working days."
In other words the only way right now to take your money out is via a wire transfer? ... along with the possibly hefty bank charges associated with it.
We've seen too many start ups hacking away MVPs before even thinking about security. It all crumbles down when somebody takes an interest.
Just mentioning TLS/SSL on the FAQ does not make your system secure. And it's better to know now if what you've done is the best you can do, not when you have hundreds of thousands of users.
The platform of this as iOS app based only is beyond retarded. You should be selling the service platform you create. Limiting an interaction to just an App is as stupid as those messaging systems that don't have a web front end component.
Droplet is the first app of its kind that lets you send payments completely outside of the traditional banking and credit card systems. It’s a bit like cash – but digital and mobile. You don’t need to connect your phone to your bank account to use Droplet. Instead you just top up your account via your phone, a bit like you’d draw money out of a cash point. https://dropletpay.com/about/
What does that mean? Is that a new implementation of chaumian e-cash?
Instead of an account with a credit card company, you have an account with droplet.
What's self-explanatory about that? Are they billing my carrier so the charge shows up on my bill? Are they drawing directly from my bank account? Do they charge my credit card?
Ubiquity trumps novelty. Every single time.
Oh look, Droplet is targetting Birmingham UK, first - looks like they know this.
If this company is intending to do the same for payments, perhaps we should all expect to be paid nothing?