Coolest Brands 2014: One Card to Rule Them All
What, you don’t know what Coin is? You must live in a very comfortable cave.
Coin took the payments world by storm last November, announcing that it was raising $50,000 on its site and not bothering with Kickstarter. It met its goal in just 47 minutes, thanks to a brilliant marketing campaign from founder Kanishk Parashar that involved implying a limited supply, lowering the price for early adopters, and winning the hearts and minds of fintech influencers.
Coin incorporates up to eight payment cards in a single, sleek black card and accompanying mobile app. Users switch between payment methods by pressing buttons on the face of the card. Sound familiar? Everything about Coin is familiar, and that’s part of its genius. Other companies have push buttons on cards and other companies incorporate multiple payment sources on one device, and other companies have dongles that allow users to load card data onto a mobile device, but Coin has all three, and more besides.
Its greatest innovation may be that it acclimates users to using a single device for all their payment needs. In this sense, it is the most successful of the transitional mobile payment methods, with another standout being LoopPay. Payments geeks love Coin. People who don’t think about payments at all think Coin is cool. Thousands of people are willing to shell out $50 for the privilege of loading their payment cards onto a Coin card. That’s pretty cool. By the way, that price goes up to $100 soon — so get yours now!
Learn more about what’s next in banking at Bank Innovation 2014 on March 3-4 in Seattle. Request an invitation here.
