
Amazon-backed startup makes digital payment possible without Internet - rchaudhary
https://retail.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/e-commerce/e-tailing/this-amazon-backed-startup-makes-digital-payment-possible-without-internet/71044782
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ricardobeat
I have so many questions after reading this. What is this “sticker” that they
provide for PoS integration?

> The six-year-old startup earns revenue by charging a license fee for its
> product from payment instrument issuers. From merchants, it charges a fee on
> every transaction. The firm is currently at a pre-revenue stage.

So... do they have any revenue or not? I’ll take it as a no.

> over 3,20,00 merchants across the country have adopted the ToneTag
> technology

Okay.

The technology is pretty interesting. Many years ago I wrote a JS
implementation for Chirp which used a similar audio protocol. For payments
especially, though, it seems dead on the water: there is no user experience
advantage at all over NFC, Bluetooth (and now UWB), and even a $10 phone has
Bluetooth these days.

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rafael859
I don't really get how this works. Since it is completely offline, what's
stopping someone from paying some amount, but not subtracting it from their
account? I guess each party could sync the transactions when they get back
online, but this seems messy.

