Comments on post “Coin (iOS)”
Eric Metelka
@eric3000 · Product Manager, PowerReviews
The problem I have with the app is the same reason I never preordered a Coin card - it doesn't support Chip & Pin which is set to become the US standard next year and is already a standard in most international countries. In a recent interview, the founder of Coin dismissed the need to innovate for Chip & Pin. He may have been being coy about future product roadmap, but it doesn't give me great confidence this solution will work more than a year or two.
EDIT: Looks like I was wrong about this. Swipe cards will still be accepted for the foreseeable future and Coin is a viable replacement. I still see trouble because by their own estimates, Coin only works at about 80% of merchants. However, I thought with Chip & Pin it'd a much worse problem.
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Chris Carella
@ccarella · Product at Broadway Video Ventures
@eric3000 this is the reason I asked for a refund, when they sent out an email last week offering one.
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Matt
@mzuvella · Marketing @OnsideSports
@eric3000 @ccarella Chipped cards only protect fraud in “card-present” transactions. Your number can still easily be hacked via a Target like breach. Plus with @simple, @getmoven and now @coin sending real time notifications for every transaction, you will know immediately when someone other than yourself uses your card. So how does the chip really help?
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Eric Metelka
@eric3000 · Product Manager, PowerReviews
@mzuvella Im going to punt on your question because I am not a security expert. Whether they are hackable or not, chip and pin is going to be US standard by law. To pay, you'll need it and Coin doesn't have it.
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Matt
@mzuvella · Marketing @OnsideSports
@eric3000 You don't need to be a security expert...a chipped card means you insert into the card reader and it reads the chip vs. today's traditional swipe. The chips are harder to duplicate but your number can still be used without your consent.
And required by law? VISA and MC have said they are making the switch in Fall 2015 but I haven't heard anything about it be required by law.
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Eric Metelka
@eric3000 · Product Manager, PowerReviews
@mzuvella I understand how the chip works vs. swipe. I was passing on your question because I cannot comment on how easy to hack any of these security measures are.
As for the law, I was mistaken. There was heavy pressure from the government for the change, but no law was passed: http://blogs.wsj.com/corporate-i...
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Felix Reznik
@felixreznik
@ccarella Yup me too. Regarding the law, this is how it works as I understand. Starting Jan 2015, the lowest technology eats the bill for the fraud. So if Visa/MC does not send you a chip card, they will eat all fraud losses starting in Jan. If Visa/MC replaced your card to one with a chip, but the merchant did not upgrade the terminal, you'll still be able to use the new card, but the merchant will eat the loss from any fraud. If Visa/MC sent you a card and the merchant upgraded their terminal but you're using the Coin or an "old" card, you eat the fraud. It's a safe bet everyone will get a new card in the mail on or before Jan '15. So it will be up to the merchant to upgrade asap. I'm sure the big ones will. It's only the little guys who won't. But if you're using the Coin after Jan and the merchant has the new terminal, you'll still be able to use your Coin, but all your fraud protection goes away. Thanks but no thanks.
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Chris Carella
@ccarella · Product at Broadway Video Ventures
@mzuvella one of my big concerns is that in-store vendors will refuse to take cards that are not chipped. If the point of Coin is to only carry one card but some vendors don't accept that non-chipped card, I'll still wind up carrying a pocket full of cards.
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Matt
@mzuvella · Marketing @OnsideSports
@ccarella True...but that is at least 2 years away. Chips are a fundamental change and it won't happen overnight. Coin will have plenty of time to release an updated model.
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Jack Smith
@_jacksmith · Serial Entrepreneur & Startup Adviser
@eric3000 "chip and pin is going to be US standard by law. To pay, you'll need it and Coin doesn't have it." — this is not correct. I am from the UK, which has had chip and pin for like 10 years. All the readers still have a swipe slot, as well as "dip" for chip and pin. if you have a swipe card, you can just swipe it instead.
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Jack Smith
@_jacksmith · Serial Entrepreneur & Startup Adviser
@ccarella "one of my big concerns is that in-store vendors will refuse to take cards that are not chipped" — they will accept non chipped cards, especially as loads of people are still going to have such cards for ages. In the UK, which has had chip and pin for ~10 years; the machines all have two slots - one for chip and pin, one for swipe, depending what card people have - to accommodate people coming from abroad with non chip cards etc.
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Justin Mitchell
@itsthisjustin · Designing Products at Sofriendly.com
@eric3000 There isn't going to be a law per se, they will just be forcing the fraud to the merchant if they don't update their systems to support EMV.
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Kunaal Arya
@kunaalarya · BD, Kiip
@eric3000 Have gone through the transition in Canada before and if you don't have a chip, you just swipe. And it's never once been brought up that no chip is an issue.
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Nabeel Hyatt
@nabeel · vc, entrepreneur, geek @sparkcapital
@eric3000 that's actually not true. the US will adopt chip'n pin next year but swipe cards will likely represent more than 50% of transactions for at least 5-9 years according to estimates. There's no way merchants will stop accepting swipe until that ratio is less than 5%.
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