Forget the Plastic, Wallaby Is All About APIs Now
So the Wallaby card never arrived — but hey, who needs cards anymore?
Wallaby began beta testing in June 2012, and received $1.1 million in seed funding that August. The goal was to provide a card that would include all the user’s cards and deploy the optimal one based on the situation. It was designed to have an intelligent backend and simple form factor — no push buttons or display screens, and would be controlled via mobile app.
But the moment for cards may have passed (see: Coin) and Wallaby has recognized this. So in October at FinDEVr in San Francisco, Wallaby CEO Matthew Goldman will introduce a series of APIs that will follow the company’s original mission in updated form.
One API will provide a directory of all the available credit cards in the U.S.
Wallaby was bought by Bankrate in 2014, and this API serves Bankrate’s purpose of comparing cards and accounts. The service provides slices of credit card data not yet seen, such as how many cards provide concierge services. “It’s not just about the rewards,” Goldman said. “The data we have is valuable to issuers. If you’re thinking of issuing a particular card, what other cards look like that?” Many smaller banks are looking to get back into credit, Goldman said, and need guidance on what kinds of products to offer beyond the boilerplate.
The second API provides Wallaby’s planned card functionality in distributed form. The API allows Wallaby’s reward-selecting tool to be embedded in other wallets. “If you’re going to have a digital wallet, it better be smart,” Goldman told Bank Innovation. Of course, Apple Pay and Android Pay are, as of yet, notoriously dumb, and that’s even part of their virtue.
This move makes sense for Wallaby, but what about the card space? Goldman sees promise in the various players out there: Coin, Stratos, Plastiq (someday). “I have them all,” Goldman says. “They have a future. There’s going to be a long tail, last mile problem that they address.”
Get more innovation intelligence at Bank Innovation Israel on Nov. 10-11 in Tel Aviv. Click here for details.
