Coin 2.0 Lacking [VIDEO]
Coin, the card aggregation device, introduced its version 2.0 device with NFC capabilities a couple of days ago, and it is, well, lacking.
Below is a demo of the device. Coin 2.0 reportedly started shipping on August 26 “to all backers.” The company originally said it would start 2.0 shipments last April.
The upgrade to Coin 2.0 is free, although the Coin service costs $100, not including tax and shipping charges. (Coin 1.0 cost $55.) At first, Coin 2.0 NFC will be in “Early-Access-Mode,” where it will function with a few types of cards, according to the company. In the coming months, over-the-air updates will enable the rest of the banks that Coin works with.
There is a sense that Coin might have missed its time. Essentially, there is nothing a Coin device can do that Apple Pay-equipped iPhone can’t. There are even reports that consumers who ordered 1.0, which was introduced in late 2013, still have not received their device. Coin says beginning last spring it has shipped 80,000 devices to date.
Coin 2.0 does not include an EMV chip, but it is reportedly EMV compliant, and you know what happens on Oct. 1. Compliant or not, without that chip, merchants with POS systems that do not accept EMV via NFC are SOL (shit out of luck, for all you with acronym-phobia).
But, perhaps more importantly, it is unclear whether Coin 2.0 will get card-present rates for merchants like Apple Pay. We are trying to find out now.
Update: Cherian Abraham answered our question on Twitter:
@BankInnovation @noyesclt @BrianRoemmele @coin Nothing that I have read leads me to believe it will. It’s not a product pitched to merchants
— Cherian Abraham (@cherian_abraham) August 28, 2015
