The current situation is almost comical. "Do you have Venmo? Haven't set that up yet, can you send over Paypal?. No, what about Square Wallet? Nope, what about Gmail?"
The current situation is almost comical. "Do you have Venmo? Haven't set that up yet, can you send over Paypal?. No, what about Square Wallet? Nope, what about Gmail?"
> At this point, I just want one of these pay-with-your-phone solutions to win and be ubiquitous.
I'm not saying this is a clear winner, just that Venmo is well on its way to ubiquity in this market, at least within my demographic/peer group. I'm fairly social, and I try to keep an eye on the tech that people I meet who don't work in tech are using, and Venmo certainly stands out in that regard.
Seriously though, I don't like Venmo's "cash out" approach, but maybe that's because I don't use it enough to want to carry a Venmo balance.
I'm not sure how this is possible since doesn't that mean that anyone can just input a debit card and start withdrawing money? It is nice though because people can sign up instantly instead of it taking a couple days.
http://jonbwhite.tumblr.com/post/66853226398/how-square-move...
https://www.interac.ca/en/interac-etransfer/etransfer-detail
clearXchange allows account holders in any of the member banks to send funds to each other and it takes about 1-2 days after the first transaction. It also allows sending funds via cellphone. If you have a Wells Fargo account, you can send funds to a BoA account holder using just their phone number.
I think the banks have done a horrible job of advertising this free no-strings-attached service.
I don't know how innovative it is, but it works relatively well.
https://www.interac.ca/en/interac-etransfer/etransfer-detail
What pisses me off is that we have a nearly ubiquitous way to send money in the physical world--a cheque. Yet, in the digital world we stumble to achieve the same.
I blame the profit driven corporations as each solution incurs a transaction fee and/or a proprietary solution with no interop with other systems.
My experience doing B2B money transfers: For those out of country I paid a $25-50 fee to do a wire transfer. Meanwhile bank transfers within Canada required a cash withdrawal (or bank draft), followed by a trip to the other bank to perform the deposit. Sigh.
Has anyone tried TransferWise?
My bank allows me to set up personal payees, though I have to go into a branch to do it. It acts just like a bill payment, which I get for free. The downside is that it takes a day (if the recipient is at the same bank) or more (if they're not at the same bank).
The plus side on the email transfer is that it is virtually instant (~5 minutes usually).
edit: s/screenshot/photo/
The back-end is made from ACH/SWIFT which are indeed from traditional financial services. Access to these key services is restricted for liability reasons, although you can indeed make a wiretransfer from most bank accounts online. I can do 4 of these a month without any charges.
[0] as in, it's a perfectly normal way to reimburse friends or colleagues who've paid stuff for you
You simply load your bank's mobile app and send money to your mate using his phone number. It's pretty simple to set up and works across most major banks here.
Swish got some bad press when Moxie noticed that they "borrowed" some code, but the system is easy to use and seems to work well.
[1] http://blog.nullbyte.eu/open-curtains-in-swish-payments-serv...
It doesn't really make sense for me. I would much rather use a vendor that's sole purpose is to provide a means of money transferring. I don't need the convenience of typing a sigil followed by the amount to send money to friends. If I really can't electronically send them money, I will go out of my way to give them cash at a later date.
Companies have always started in the former, and expanded to the latter to not only diversify their "investments" (using that very loosely), but increase revenue.
It just makes sense. And from a tech company it makes sense in a world where internet banking is still only adopted by ~60% of consumers. (I know, surprised me too.)
A confuseopoly depends on an uninformed public. I'm sure there's some special reason for each of the 20 or so payment services, although I don't have the time and motivation to research. Confuseopolies are designed to screw the end user. So I'm inherently scared away from "payment services". Especially when simple cash is to fast, easy, incredibly cheap, and convenient.
Where we're at right now with payment services is roughly 80s BBS or 90s walled garden legacy services. "Wow, if the whole world were on this BBS or on compuserv then the whole world could talk together... but no there's fifty BBSes in my LATA alone"
Simple is just that. A bank (or rather, a banking services provider. Us bancorp is the actual bank).
The tight integration with mobile payments, because of them also being a banking services provider, is absolutely flawless.
Also it feels like improvements have been VERY slow coming. Goals finally got some much needed attention but it's still lacking. I have to do everything manually when my paycheck comes in because their goals come out daily. I don't get paid daily, why would I want that money coming out daily? I just want to set aside money for car/rent/insurance/etc when I get paid, maybe things like "wants" (a new TV, computer, etc) work better for the daily pull but even then I'd rather just set aside $XXX when I get paid through goals.
End of the day, I went with good-old-brick'n'mortar Wells Fargo because (1) I wanted to establish a long-term customer relationship with a bank that can provide me with various credit products (including for business) (2) their ATM network is ubiquitous where I live (SF) and (3) there are many branches with convenient hours for when I want to do something a little off the beaten path.
I don't give a rat's about how quickly a $10 payment is available. I care a lot more about good fraud controls, and the ability to speak to a human being, in person, when things occasionally go wrong.
I bet this number is much lower than you think it is. People outside of the tech/hacker scene don't care about privacy (in this context). "Who cares if Facebook knows that I went to McDonalds?"
But maybe I'm cynical because I'm in Austin and driving anywhere is just miserable.
"OK, here is some random bank's ATM which charged me $44 to get $40 (2 x $20) out, and now you say you don't have $12.5 in change on you ... well, shit." ... "What will you prefer: GWallet or FB ?"
"Oh you need the full $27.50 because your life will collapse due to a lack of $7.50 in cash although nobody uses cash, well, there's an ATM in the lobby thats free on my network, I'll spot you $30 on the $27.50 and you owe me a can of soda next time"
The problem with a bazzilion services all trying to extort small transactional fees either short term or long term is the marketing about their fee can't avoid mentioning that the fee is really small and we're discussing fairly small amounts of money.
I am okay with rounding off amounts with my close friends. But with other people there is that social angle with being comfortable enough when I tell them I will buy you soda next time. Plus consider this "buying soda next time" with 10 people at the same time in either direction. The question is not about $2.50 being a small amount. I like being exact about money and so do lot of my friends. May be I am from a different background where $2.50 is still money that should be cleared.
Sidenote: Usually such fees are O(1), i.e., independent of the actual amount being withdrawn (and even applies to non-monetary transactions, such as balance inquiry).
I'm not going to go home and remember to paypal on my desktop when I could just use the venmo app to send you money right after you paid.
Point being: Learning is a lifelong pursuit, and if you don't want to learn then you will be left behind using Facebook Messenger to send money. Kidding, but you hopefully get the gist.
Yet, bitcoin seems like way more friction?
I've never had a bank require that I OAuth with Facebook or give them copies of my passport in order to get an account. Bitcoin is just not the solution to this problem.
I guess you've never read https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Trade
Besides that, bitcoin is so profoundly different than traditional money systems it can't possibly be practical as money so soon. It shouldn't be practical as money so soon, but it is making progress.
That's not true. Americans (Facebook's intended audience for this Messenger money-sending feature) can spend bitcoins directly at Microsoft, Dell, Expedia, Overstock, Newegg, Tiger Direct, DISH Network, etc. They can use and spend bitcoins theoretically received from FB friends without having a credit card, without even having a bank account.
100,000 (legitimate!) merchants worldwide accept Bitcoin - http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/bitcoin-now-accepted-by-100000-merc... It is time to kill the myth of "only the dark web accepts Bitcoin".
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/246mlg/bitstamp_blo...
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/25jyf1/bitstamp_ive...
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/26c1y6/buying_bitco...
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2renc7/why_dont_peo...
I could go on, all I did was search /r/bitcoin for the word "passport" and I was overflowing with results.
I'm not sure how you read, "a passport is required to use bitcoin" from "I've never had a bank ask me for a passport when opening a bank account". My point, which I substantiated with those /r/bitcoin posts, is that it's not unusual for a bitcoin exchange to ask for a copy of a customer's passport as part of their KYC procedures.
One can deduce from the context that a passport is required to use bitcoin. It's FUD and incorrect.
What do banks require in order to open an account?
From the 1st result on google:
your name, your date of birth, your current address and phone number, Social Security number (in most cases) and your email address.
You don't need any of those to use bitcoin. You don't need any of those to buy or sell bitcoin.
You deduced incorrectly. I'm saying that if the KYC system flags the recipient, for whatever reason, then they will likely be required to produce a passport.
This is obvious. What is your point? Nobody is arguing that KYC is a requirement of bitcoin. Let me break down exactly what I'm saying:
1. For the vast majority of people, bitcoin is impractical as a method of payment for every day needs.
2. As a result of this, most people don't want bitcoins, and instead prefer legal tender that is usable wherever they might need to spend it.
3. The most practical and least stressful method for converting bitcoins into legal tender is through an exchange.
4. Exchanges have KYC procedures.
Very simple.
The reality is that using bitcoin as money is very impractical, that's just a fact.
Bitcoin is becoming more and more practical as more and more merchants adopt it. Again: 100,000 merchants accept Bitcoin today, and this number is (so far) increasing rapidly.
Coinbase has 38k: https://www.coinbase.com/about
Gocoin has 5.5k: https://ihb.io/2015-01-29/news/gocoin-announces-5500-merchan...
That's already 93.5k from merely 3 american bitcoin gateways. Add the rest of the world (China, etc) and it is clear there are 100k or more.
I'd be curious to see what the active merchants per month actually are for Bitpay and Coinbase. Until then I have a hard time believing they actually have those numbers live given the number of stories I've seen of people visiting stores/restaurants that accept bitcoin only to be told they don't do that anymore.
I agree with that. It seems we agree that bitcoin is currently impractical, which is the crux of my argument. Bitcoin is not a practical way to send money unless the recipient already has a bank account and a bitcoin exchange account.