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Meet Coin, the All-In-One Card

[Can't see the video? Here's the original on YouTube.]

Coin is the cure for the wallet overstuffed with credit and debit cards. A small battery lets you keep as many cards as you want with you at all times and cycle between them.

Some thoughts: 

1. What a crazy, cool idea.
   
   
2. This solves the problem that's leaving many scratching their heads re: NFC and digital wallets. Coin cards are built to swipe just like any other card. There's no "new learning" that users have to do to take advantage of the technology.
   
   
3. The FAQ seems to suggest that a lost or stolen Coin can be deactivated with the mobile app. But it locks itself out if "out of contact with your phone [for] too long"? Guessing we'd need to see what happened in that case, but let's hope the app jumps into action when you realize your Coin's been carried off.
   
   
4. Good luck winning the Google game, Coin. Just typing "Coin" into Google didn't show us  anything Coin-related, nor did "Coin Card". Given the press they're getting, Coin won't have to worry for too long, but you think they'd at least buy up some AdWords.
   
   
5. How long until the major players have a Coin of their own? PayPal moved pretty quickly to match the Square reader. Who tries something like this as a "yes, and"?

Gee Golly, What a Tiny Gas Pump Card Skimmer!

[via Boing Boing]

A pair of crooks in Oklahoma made more than $400,000 witha whisper-thin gas-pump credit-card skimmer that they installed in Wal-Mart gas stations, using rental cars while they were doing the installation.

A dark after-effect of Moore's Law. Have you checked your ATMs lately? 

Get Lost, Smartphone Users - One Woman's Desire to Stay Off the Grid

An interesting take on Smartphones from Laura Newcomer:

In reality, about 50 percent of Americans and 66 percent of adults aged 18 to 29 own smartphones. My own reasons for abstaining are numerous, and range from the practical to the ideological...

...what it really comes down to, for me, is the ability to get lost.

The author doesn't like the idea of being tethered to the smartphone and growing dependent on its perks, especially maps and interactivity. "He who cuts his own wood warms himself twice," and all that.

A thought occurs: are we so close to mobile tech ubiquity that we'll start seeing this kind of refusal/backlash?

Some interesting trends in credit card debt

Delinquencies are the lowest they've been since 1990 - that's 23 years, if you're keeping score (see the full story on CNN Money). Debt is also down, but as a result of charge-offs and payment restructuring, says NerdWallet's analysis of household credit card debt. According to the same article:

• The average credit card debt in the US is $7,149.
• The average for indebted households is $15,325. 
• The percentage of households in the US carrying a credit card balance? 46.7%. 

So, here's the $850 billion question: is lower debt and lower delinquency good or bad for the finance industry? To what degree are spending habits changing as opposed to debt forgiveness?

A 100% Bummer

[DailyFinance, via CU Insight]

A new survey by the FINRA Investor Education Foundation found that 75% of U.S. adults say they're pros at managing their finances, but only 14% could ace a five-question quiz on basic financial concepts, and only 25% more managed to score four out of five.

Only 14% of the 25,000 test-takers got all five (5) questions correct. 

It's looking bleak out there for financial literacy. Click the links above to take the test for yourself.

Insurance Apps are Going Deep on Customer Interaction

[from NetBanker]

Apps that help you move, record the contents of your home and their value (for insurance purposes), track your driving performance, help you plan trips - insurance companies are making sure their apps give users bang for their buck and keep them engaged. 

USAA has one app that does everything, it seems...is the multi-app strategy stronger than the all-in-one approach?

17 Things You Should Stop Doing to Your Websites

[via SEJ]

An interesting and useful list of Do's and Don'ts...mostly Don'ts. To skip ahead a bit:

17.   Stop planning – start doing

There’s a lot of internet marketing and strategy dropped on you daily – dozens of ideas and plans to implement. The big question is – are you doing it? Some people take planning so seriously, they never get down to actually implementing the useful stuff...

The rest of the list supports tighter, more focused, much easier-to-load content and page structures that make sense for all audiences. Move away from book-length swaths of content and auto-play videos and focus on what really matters - informing and enlightening an audience in less time with better content.

48% of Teens Own an iPhone, 62% Looking to Get One

[from CNN Money, via Daring Fireball]

The key findings:

• 91% of teens say they plan to buy a smartphone for their next high-tech device, up from 86% last spring and 90% last fall
• 59% of teens say they are likely to buy an iOS device (unchanged from fall) and 21% are likely to buy an Android device (was 20%)
• Among high-income families, the iOS preference rises to 70%
• 48% of teens already own an iPhone, compared with 40% last fall
• 62% of teens plan on making an iPhone their next mobile device (flat vs. fall 2012)

And more than that - 51% of teens own a tablet of some kind. 

What you should be doing with this news: 

1. Making sure your website and OLB work well and look good on mobile devices
2. Figuring out whether there's any benefit to building an app for your FI
3. Worrying about mobile payment "game changers", i.e., digital wallets, NFC money trades between business and between phones, etc.
4. Working tablets and smartphones into your giveaways that are aimed at youth markets

A Multilingual Banking App

[from CUJournal.com - Paid Subscribers Only, FYI]

River City FCU worked with Malauzai to further its mobile offering and deploy a SmartApp for the iPad. Despite a highly customized look and feel, the project was completed in 17 business days. The credit union also chose to offer a mirrored Spanish version of the SmartApp to meet the needs of current members, as well as attract new ones.

This is an interesting approach by River City FCU and Malauzai, our app partner for My Virtual StrongBox. It's one thing to have an app that switches languages based on location (i.e., showing French when you're in Paris), but this kind of functionality is imperative in areas with high concentrations of Spanish speaking persons. Building in the ability to switch is pretty nifty...and we'd bet not something a lot of app designers consider from the outset.

Mobile Traffic Increasing for Top 10 Banks

Table: U.S. desktop and mobile traffic at the top-10 busiest U.S. banks
millions of unique visitors, age 18+ (Feb 2013)

Feb 2013 (USA)	Total	Desktop	Mobile*	Mobile Only	Mobile Incremental**
Total U.S. Internet	236	221	127	14.5	7%
Banking total	102	85.1	39.1	16.4	19%
1. Bank of America	31.5	24.1	11.7	7.4	31%
2. JPMorgan Chase	28.3	21.9	9.9	6.3	29%
3. Wells Fargo	22.2	20.0	3.5	2.2	11%
4. Capital One	15.4	12.7	3.8	2.8	22%
5. Amex	15.3	12.6	3.8	2.7	21%
6. Citi	11.8	10.4	2.0	1.4	13%
7. Discover	7.8	6.5	1.7	1.3	20%
8. HSBC	6.5	5.5	1.3	1.0	19%
9. US Bank	5.5	4.8	0.9	0.7	14%
10. PNC	4.8	3.9	1.1	0.8	21%

Source: comScore, March 2013 (methodology)     

___

(via NetBanker.com)

Breune's take on the shift toward mobile banking/mobile account management: 

Bottom line: It is no surprise that mobile usage is significant. But what I didn't realize is how quickly mobile users are giving up desktop online banking. Look at Chase and BofA, which have had mobile the longest. Only 1/3 of their mobile users went to the desktop during February. Partly, that's because many are single-service credit card customers. But it's strong evidence for what many have hypothesized: once users become accustomed to mobile convenience, they have much less need for desktop access.

Why bother going to the desktop when it's all on your phone, point "A".

Point "B" - how much will mobile wallets increase this effect? If you're spending money using your phone, managing money using your phone, and updating your balances using your phone, why bother with the computer...well, ever again, really?