

Visa to Offer Person-to-person Payments (to compete with PayPal) - srgseg
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/222396/visa_to_offer_persontoperson_payments.html

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follower
It's an odd day when a market sector is so messed up that it seems like a good
thing that a credit card company is entering it. I hope their entry somehow
improves the behavior of both companies.

(Although I note it seems it will be US only for the moment.)

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nkassis
Well to be fair Visa isn't responsible for some the of the crazy credit card
stuff. They provide the network, fraud detection etc. Blame the lenders for
the bad terms.

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dangrossman
Visa's responsible for most of the reasons people hate PayPal.

\- Visa's the reason PayPal holds sellers 100% liable for fraudulent payments.

\- Visa's the reason PayPal holds funds for a minimum of 6 months if they
freeze an account.

\- Visa's the reason for PayPal denying an account to that "sell experiences"
startup that complained on HN a week or two ago.

\- Visa's the reason PayPal is so quick to freeze an account for anything
resembling a risk, because Visa requires its processors stay under a ~1%
chargeback ratio (in % of volume, which means far less than 1% of transactions
since the fraudulent ones tend to be the bigger ones).

Sure PayPal shares _some_ of the blame for their customer support issues, but
the reasons people have to deal with support in the first place usually boil
down to Visa operating regulations that PayPal's policies are built around.

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cabalamat
How is Visa responsible for all this?

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mfringel
_How is Visa responsible for all this?_

Because Paypal's general annoyance factor is (likely) the path of least
resistance for compliance with Visa's rules for a person-to-person payment
service.

~~~
cabalamat
Sorry, I don't follow your reasoning. Could you restate that?

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siculars
Any viable competitor to the Paypal tyranny would be quite welcome.
Competition is a good thing.

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srgseg
Also covered here: <http://mashable.com/2011/03/16/visa-personal-payments/>

"...to send and receive funds to any eligible Visa credit, debit or prepaid
account anywhere in the world."

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copper
As someone who saw the fun Paypal had with the Indian government, I suspect
the key word in that above quote is " _eligible_ "

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trustfundbaby
As long as Paypal has some serious competition ... I'm happy.

Maybe now they'll treat customers with a little bit of respect.

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bdonlan
Does this mean I'd have to give someone my credit card number to have them pay
me? Or would they have a separate deposit-only account identifier?

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ck2
Assuming the fees are reasonable and competitive, I will definitely use and
recommend this, thanks for taking the risk Visa.

Now Google, when are you going to step up to the plate?

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danssig
What makes you think Google would be any less evil than Paypal?

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mdaniel
1\. PayPal doesn't have a corporate motto of "Don't be evil" 2\. We have
existing data for the big G via their Google Payments

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trezor
_1\. PayPal doesn't have a corporate motto of "Don't be evil"_

If you think Google wont do bad stuff because of a good PR-stunt, my personal
motto is also "Don't be evil" and boy do I have a bridge to sell you.

You may be affiliated with Google trough some of your former projects and
don't want to think you are part of something bad, I don't know.

But as an end-user who only sees Google's complete dominance all over the web,
as the company who _now_ anonymizes search/keyword-data for site-owners,
unless you deploy Google Analytics and further increases Google's grip on the
web, etc etc, I see a big beast who could go monster overnight with the rest
of the internet powerless to stop it.

Google may not be evil now, but being OK with the power they wield just
because they aren't abusing that power is something I cannot be content with.
A silly "Don't be evil" motto isn't going to change that.

I'll welcome good options anywhere I can find them, and I don't use Google's
products for anything I can't replace with something else. Having another non-
Google option in the Android market would be very much welcomed. Especially
considering Google Checkout's extremely poor track-record.

~~~
danssig
Not to mention the fact that even if, against all odds, Larry and Serge truly
are completely benevolent they aren't going to live forever. At some point
they'll get bored and leave or get old and die. Then the next guy will step
into a company that owns most of the web...

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thinkcomp
This seems about ten years too late.

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alexgartrell
In this particular case, better late than never. I'm also relatively certain
that Visa will be in a strong position to dominate the space, if only because
of their brand presence.

I'd much rather get online with my Visa Card (which is hooked up directly to
my bank account, as it is for many other PNC customers and, I'm guessing,
customers of other banks) to transfer money to my friend than I would write
him a check. On the other hand, I don't have a Paypal account, and would be
unlikely to want to screw with it.

I think there will be a lot of people who see this like I do.

