US aims to relaunch dollar coin

[Wezil]

There is a reason Tim Hortons won't do business that way (mentioned by an earlier poster). Too slow.

[DanS]

Tim Horton's is now the authority on this? How... underwhelming.

[Wezil]

Originally posted by DanS
Tim Horton's is now the authority on this? How... underwhelming.

See one of their stores and you might understand. Extremely busy with small $$ purchases. Debit and/or credit purchases would bring them to a complete standstill.

[Kontiki]

Both debit and credit will soon be obsolete for small transactions anyway. Dexit has been test launched in Canada and a friend of mine at Interac tells me they are working on another quick pay system. Dexit is a little fob that you load with money and then pay at participating retailers simply by touching it to a sensor. No codes, zero wait time and instantly updated totals on the chip.

[Wezil]

Originally posted by Kontiki
Both debit and credit will soon be obsolete for small transactions anyway. Dexit has been test launched in Canada and a friend of mine at Interac tells me they are working on another quick pay system. Dexit is a little fob that you load with money and then pay at participating retailers simply by touching it to a sensor. No codes, zero wait time and instantly updated totals on the chip.

That would make more sense.

The other problem with debit/credit is verifying the charges at the end of the statement period. If I purchased everything for a month this way then I would have to spend considerable time confirming the statement. Days even.

[DanS]

Originally posted by Kontiki
Both debit and credit will soon be obsolete for small transactions anyway. Dexit has been test launched in Canada and a friend of mine at Interac tells me they are working on another quick pay system. Dexit is a little fob that you load with money and then pay at participating retailers simply by touching it to a sensor. No codes, zero wait time and instantly updated totals on the chip.

The only problem that I see with this is that it's tough to sign up participating retailers. The credit card companies are just now signing up the remaining retailers who didn't accept cards.

I already have two stored value cards (Metrorail, laundry), so I know them to be handy for specific applications. But I'm skeptical that anybody would buy into a stored value network, when the credit cards handle that business fine. Maybe in other countries, where credit cards/internet access aren't ubiquitous, the stored value cards/fobs will gain more traction.

[TCO]

Get rid of the penny. (And don't ***** about sales tax, they can round it.)

[SlowwHand]

Why not just list the price, tax included?

$7.25 or whatever.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by DanS
Maybe in other countries, where credit cards/internet access aren't ubiquitous, the stored value cards/fobs will gain more traction.

The bigger issue, and certainly the one in play in Canada, is the nature of the financial services industy. Because we have a much greater concentration in this area than the US, we tend to be more on the cutting edge of financial transaction technology. It's simply much easier to bring stuff like this to market when five big players utterly dominate the field, and will often work together to develop new technologies (hence Interac).

[TCO]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
Why not just list the price, tax included?

$7.25 or whatever.

No...that's a bad idea. Makes things too easy for the tax man. Like withholding.

[Wezil]

It makes things too easy for the politicians. I want to see the tax they are collecting.

[Krill]

Yeah, the US way of doing Sales tax is also annoying...

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Kontiki
Both debit and credit will soon be obsolete for small transactions anyway. Dexit has been test launched in Canada and a friend of mine at Interac tells me they are working on another quick pay system. Dexit is a little fob that you load with money and then pay at participating retailers simply by touching it to a sensor. No codes, zero wait time and instantly updated totals on the chip.

If the fob doesn't survive a through the wash or some such, how do you get your money back? Gimme cash.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


No, its not because they are 'regarded... as worthless', it's because I don't want to carry around bulky coins in my pocket. Most American males, in my experience, do not. It's why the dollar coin hasn't taken off. Because we like our bills. We don't like carrying around coins.

there is only one solution. Bring back the man-purse.

[Zkribbler]

Dexit is a little fob that you load with money and then pay at participating retailers simply by touching it to a sensor. No codes, zero wait time and instantly updated totals on the chip.

Sounds like it requires the customer to trust that the vendor's computers always get things right.

Having had to just pay $70 to the L.A. library for non-returned books that I never checked out I remain a sceptic.