Tag: money

Monopoly gets with the times

Post ImageI guess nothing is sacred anymore. Remember playing Monopoly as a kid? Great game right? I dunno about you, but I remember the piles of paper money being the best part. In the newest versions of the game however, the paper money is gone:

Parker Brothers is phasing out the cash-based version’s funmoney and replacing it with an “Electronic Banking” flavor that could leave Mr. Moneybags turning his pockets inside out as his stash is replaced by a magnetic strip. New kits are completely devoid of the famous multi-colored bills; instead, you’ll find phoney Visa debit cards and a calculator / reader which keeps a running tabulation of your riches — or lack thereof. A deal was struck with Visa to design the mock cards and readers, presumably after surveys showed that 70% of adults used cash less often now than they did a decade ago (no surprise there). When asked about the dramatic change, Parker said replacing cash with plastic “showed the game was moving with the times.”

Even though I remember the paper money being extremely fun, I am glad that it’s gone. Why? Because I am a huge supporter of getting rid of cash altogether. No need to teach kids how to use a dying form of money. Bring on the smart plastic cards, cell phone wallets, or even better, implantable identity/wallet solutions!

Read: Engadget

Who pays – you or your credit card?

Post ImageI was reading some older posts at Signal vs. Noise, the 37signals blog about all sorts of things, and I came across a post on number portability and the idea that credit cards should be the same:

Maybe one day your card number will be portable like your phone number. Theres no reason for it to change unless fraud has been committed. If you need the number changed then you can change it, but otherwise it remains the same no matter the issuer or card type.

The reasoning behind this is that there are so many recurring monthly services now that changing your credit card number (which happens if you change account types, or in some cases, when your card is renewed, etc) causes huge problems with missed payments and the need to update information manually.

I see three problems with this. The first is that lots of people have multiple cards. This is more of a problem with credit cards than it is with cell phone numbers (where the majority of users have only one). I don’t think MasterCard and Visa, for example, would like the idea of combining your two cards into one number. So you’ve still got to worry about which card to use, when each one expires, etc. The second problem is fraud. Somehow I see more problems related to fraud occurring if you have the same number all the time. Maybe I’m wrong here, but that’s the gut feeling.

The larger problem is long term – when you pay for something, are you paying, or is your credit card? You are obviously. The solution to the problems described in the SVN post is not the ability to keep one credit card number, it’s the ability to not worry about how you’re paying, just that you are paying. As a business, I don’t care if you’re paying cash, Visa, or debit card. All I care about is that you’ve paid, either right now, or on a recurring basis. If transactions were as simple as “Mack has paid Paramagnus for this” then a lot of these problems would go away. Did Mack use his old credit card or a new one? Maybe cash? Who cares, he’s paid! The scenario today is explained very well in the SVN post:

Our customers swear their cards are in good standing, but it turns out that they just switched cards and didnt realize their card number changed. Even though they have the money, and their credit is pristine, the number they had in the system is no longer a valid number and the transaction is declined.

The ability to keep a credit card number consistent might solve this in the short term, but the larger problem still exists. At some point, I hope we can move from validating a piece of plastic, to validating a person’s actual credit and financial standing.

Read: Signal vs. Noise

TextPayMe

Post ImageCame across an article at Wired talking about TextPayMe, a service that lets you send money to someone simply by using your cell phone! I like the way reporter Rachel Metz sets it up:

When a group of people dine out together, someone always lacks cash. They forgot to go to the ATM, but they’ll pay you back ASAP. Right.

Funny, though, how people rarely forget their cell phones. Philip Yuen put these two observations together and came up with TextPayMe to let people send money using text messaging.

Ain’t that the truth!

Seems like a pretty good idea, though I don’t expect the company to last very long. As the article points out, PayPal is rumored to be working on something similar. There are already millions upon millions of people using PayPal, and I already have established accounts there – why would I or anyone else use TextPayMe instead? That’s what the company needs to be focusing on. I guess one reason is that the service is currently free, but certainly that can’t last forever.

I don’t think the service is available to us Canadians yet either (sign up form only has states and zip code, no country option).

Read: Wired

Google Wallet?

Post ImageThis is another one of those rumors that just will not die. I wonder if it’s going to turn out to be true, just like Google Talk was. Here’s the latest evidence to suggest that Google might be entering the online payment business:

Gary spotted a job opening (and here) for a “Fraud Operations Director, Merchant Payment Solutions” position at Google. Google already has people that look into click fraud issues with ads, so this seems like something different. We know that Google’s working on some type of payment system that’s apparently been dubbed Google Wallet. Perhaps this job is related to that? And is the system a rival to PayPal? No, said Google earlier this year.

Unlike Google Talk, I am eagerly awaiting Google’s payment system (if it really does exist). PayPal is far and away the best service available, and is incredibly entrenched, so I’d be interested to see what Google can bring to the table. And no, I don’t think anyone who currently supports PayPal would jump ship to Google Wallet – more likely, they’d support both.

Read: John Battelle

Tracking the money

Post ImageI am really disturbed by the incredibly large number of people who immediately scream “donate” when a major disaster like Hurricane Katrina occurs. Even worse are the individuals that also start criticising companies who do not immediately announce a relief effort. It’s as if an individual or company’s worth during a disaster is measured by how much money they can donate; either directly themselves, or indirectly by getting everyone else they know to donate. Here’s a post by Rex Hammock:

Perhaps symbolic of the collective delay in responding to Katrina has been how Amazon.com has responded. Universally praised for turning over its front page to tsunami relief almost immediately, Amazon.com did not add a donation link of any size to its front page until three days after the hurricane. Today, six days after, the dominant position of the Amazon.com front page is finally devoted to Katrina relief. This is not a criticism of Amazon’s response, rather a curious observation of how there was an apparent initial disbelief by lots of people that an unprecedented tragedy of historic proportions was unfolding. (I’ll reserve my criticism for Apple, who has hyped the Mighty Mouse in the dominant position all week.)

So he’s not criticising – but why say anything about Amazon.com’s delay at all? All a post like that does is perpetuate the myth that a disaster is an excellent time for a PR war. It’s sad.

I am more concerned that any money that is donated is actually being used for relief efforts. I don’t care that a major company hasn’t donated money – I care that the money other companies have already donated is being spent properly.

Here’s an idea for the future – a website that tracks the money! If two dollars is donated to the Red Cross for example, I should be able to go on the website and see where that two dollars was spent. It should be trivial to see if the billions of dollars that are donated in a disaster are actually spent accordingly. Unfortunately, I think we’re a long way from achieving this.