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Visa Launches PayPal Alternative
An anonymous reader writes "Visa has entered the micropayment processing space with payclick, a pre-paid hosted service that will compete with the likes of PayPal. Payclick is aimed at teenagers purchasing online content like music and games where the value of the transaction is likely to be less than $20. Like PayPal, payclick is an online money repository that people can pay into with a bank account or credit card (Visa or MasterCard) and then use the funds to purchase products online. The service was developed and launched in Australia with a view for global markets. PayPal integration is not there yet, but parents can monitor the amount of funds their under-18 children have to spend online. For e-commerce sites, an SDK is available for payclick integration."
Of course you can just keep spending it online but I'm sure there'll come a point where little Jimmy wants some cold cash in his hands.
jaymz
You mean those radio option boxes are too hard for you?
For something that's supposed to compete with PayPal, it's amazingly limited.
You can't withdraw your own funds.
You can't transfer funds to anyone who isn't a family member unless they are a business, and Payclick gets a cut of the transfer to a business. (Note that I'm not faulting them for making money here, just stating facts.)
You can't pull right from a bank or credit card. You must pre-deposit funds.
Combine that with the fact that almost no services use it yet and it's not a very good offering.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
How will Visa compete with shady business practices; keeping money from users, putting a stop on user accounts because there's a solar flare, not giving a damn about client data confidentiality, not being regulated as a bank. These things make it a tough act to follow for Visa.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
In your face Paypal! May I never have to to use your rip off service again.
Paypal have been getting away with very dodgy behavior for some time now. They richly deserve the reputation they have earned as scammers out for a fast buck.
However that doesn't mean this new alternative is any better.
"Lobiusmoop has entered the micropayment processing space with 'shiny pebbles', a payment scheme based on the exchange of pretty trinkets picked up from the finest beaches of the planet.
All money is just 'shiny pebbles'. It has no value except in the fact that other people value it.
Better Visa's shiny pebbles than paypal's. Better a central bank than either of them.
Stop using your credit card as a credit line, and start using it as a way to get up to 56 days extra interest on your money plus (often statutory) protections on purchases.
How long before eBay marks it as a non-trusted form of payment?
Being a spelling & grammar Nazi is a sign you do not poses the intelligence to contribute to the conversation
Exactly. I wonder how Google checkout is still a non trusted form of Payment for an eBay auction. Are they afraid Google steals our 10$ ?
All money is just 'shiny pebbles'. It has no value except in the fact that other people value it.
Not really true. The value of a currency lies in both the willingness and requirement to make use of it.
That is why you aren't allowed to declare your incoming in ounces of gold, and why dollars are legal tender for all debt. To force you to use the currency for some things, giving it a direct value that isn't purely based on faith in the market.
At some threshold, they'll get in trouble over this- it's called a conflict of interest on their part. They own the only largely "trusted" payment company.
Visa might be the one to actually nail them over it.
How long after that would Visa start declining charges made through PayPal?
Unlike Google, Visa can cause problems for eBay.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
I think one issue that people have with paypal is that they expect it to be a credit card. It is not, it is just an way to exchange cash without metting. It really has no level of security beyond that. If one gets the product or not, that is another matter. I like not having to provide credit card credentials to arbitrary people and firms on the internet. Paypal is expensive to use, but I find it to be generally effective.
What I do not like is Verified by Visa. It only wants a weak password and if someone gets the password then they can take all your money. The security check to create a Verified by Visa account is also meaningless, requesting little more information than is required to complete a transaction in the normal way. Verified by Visa is security theatre.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
The difference in treatment is jarring. I don't think I'll ever become fully accustomed to it.
There is a school of thought that you shouldn't. That you should continue to remind yourself of how you were treated when you were a "nobody".
This school seems to believe that one way to avoid becoming the opressor (when working inside the system) is to remember when you were opressed. So that if you ever do have Hierarchical Authority over others you do not use the corresponding Power in ways you would have disagreed with.
They seem to believe the issue with "becoming accustomed" to such a dichotomy is that one loses track of where the bright line is between the Authority to do something and the Power to do it.
Of course, what do *they* know? I'm sure that eventually "might makes right" will be proven correct.
Regards.