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'Plastc' Smart Payment Card Aims to Replace Card-Stuffed Wallets

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Apr 12, 2001
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With Apple Pay's launch likely just days or perhaps weeks away, "card tech" startup Plastc today announced its plans for its new digital wallet, replacing credit cards, debit cards, RFID access cards, gift cards and more. On paper, Plastc promises to go above and beyond competitor Coin, offering an expanded set of features that are better optimized for today's new wireless mobile payment future.

remote_security_card.png
The Plastc card allows users to store up to 20 cards or barcodes on its internal flash memory and ships with a companion iOS Wallet app that lets users manage the card. Plastc looks like a standard 0.8-millimeter-thick credit card, but it features an eInk touchscreen display for selecting stored content, Bluetooth to connect to an iPhone, rewritable RFID, and support for payment technologies such as magnetic stripes, NFC, and EMV chip and PIN. It also includes wireless induction charging and a remote wipe feature that lets users erase the card in case of theft or loss.

Though its feature set is impressive, Plastc will be competing with the upcoming Apple Pay, which is scheduled to launch this month with broad industry support. Apple has worked on Apple Pay with all three major credit card companies, several major banks, and a variety of retail partners such as Macy's, Walgreens, McDonald's, Whole Foods, Disney and others.

plastc-card.jpeg
Despite this competitive threat, Plastc COO Ryan Marquis told The Verge that he is optimistic about the company's future.
"Ultimately a cloud-based digital wallet will be the winner," says Marquis, "but with our technology, we can allow consumers to build a digital wallet using a form factor that they're used to today." Marquis says there are still many use cases where we need physical cards like subway ticketing machines, ATMs, and gas pumps. "I will utilize Apple Pay because it's simple and easy, but there are so many use cases in our world where I'm still going to need a physical card," he says. "There are so many things that point-of-sale machines just aren't ready for yet."
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Similar to Coin which was announced last year and has yet to ship, Plastc is available now only for pre-order. The card costs $155 and is expected to ship next summer.

Article Link: 'Plastc' Smart Payment Card Aims to Replace Card-Stuffed Wallets
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/07/plastc-digital-wallet/
I suppose this could help in filling the gap while we wait for Apple Pay ubiquity, but Plastic's future will be short-lived.

Edit: It's too bad because, a few years ago, a cool card like this would have been drool-worthy.
 
MacRumors said:
Similar to Coin which was announced last year and has yet to ship, Plastc is available now only for pre-order. The card costs $155 and is expected to ship next summer.
Click to expand...

By the time these ship,  Pay will be in full swing (maybe).
 
It's going to be a very long time before NFC-based readers are ubiquitous enough to replace standard magnetic stripe and chip-based credit card readers. This product definitely has a use for the foreseeable future. However, the $155 price tag seems a bit steep.
 
As much as I like project like this. After the fiasco with Coin, I think I'm going to wait. I'm willing to pay for bit more at the end (when there is a product that works), but I refuse to get jerk around by these companies like a moron with my money.
 
aajeevlin said:
As much as I like project like this. After the fiasco with Coin, I think I'm going to wait. I'm willing to pay for bit more at the end (when there is a product that works), but I refuse to get jerk around by these companies like a moron with my money.
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Yeah, I don't see Apple Pay being everywhere for a a while.. but I'm not willing to put down $155 .. yet.. I would LOVE to just dump all my loyalty cards and debit/credit into a single card.

We'll see
 
Not so sure making something credit card shaped because that's what people are used to is necessarily the right idea. It's like some weird inverted skeuomorphism where hardware is shaped to fit software instead of... I guess adding cloth textures. Both seem like steps backward. A digital wallet should look like what makes a digital wallet work the best. Maybe it's a phone, maybe it's a die-cast model car. Doesn't really matter so long as the design improves the system instead of imitating an old system.
 
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This is stupid. This and Coin are pointless with Apple Pay. Sure, there are Android users, but if you don't have a product that will work on iOS, you're not a viable company.
 
This is way better than Apple Pay. Especially in the UK.
Looks like this card works with chip n pin, and nfc. Whilst apple pay has it's slow rollout, this card can already be used in many many place and works just like I want out of an all-in-one solution!
Apple pay's current plans won't match this for me. Again, especially in the UK.
 
I can certainly see the benefit of this as you'll still have to carry your cards with you if you use Apple Pay as you won't be able to use Apple Pay at all retailers and you won't be able to get cash out of the ATM. So this would be a neat solution for that. My only issue is how do you get the chip and PIN data on to the card? Presumably it will need to come with some additional hardware which allows you to transfer the data from your bank card to this card. That sounds like an opportunity for fraudsters to steal your card data.
 
Bad timing. A couple years ago this would have been cool, but after learning about Apple Pay this card doesn't seam very secure.
 
I'm skeptical of this "wipe the device" concept. If you can wipe the card info from the app, doesn't the phone need to be connected to the card via bluetooth for the request to be transmitted? Don't you usually realize you've lost a card when you are nowhere near it?

Edit: Or is wiping the info on the card more of a concept, when it really just sends a message to each card company deactivating it?
 
ProwlingTiger said:
This is stupid. This and Coin are pointless with Apple Pay. Sure, there are Android users, but if you don't have a product that will work on iOS, you're not a viable company.
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The article states that it will come with a companion iOS Wallet App so it will work with iOS.
 
I don't think people realize how this could be useful -- while I will probably end up using Apple Pay since it will be fairly ubiquitous throughout the US, the fact that this has a chip and will probably support chip and sign or chip and pin means that this will be awesome for traveling abroad... especially in other countries where chip and pin/sign have been around for years but they're too lazy to adopt NFC.
 
Can't wait for ApplePay--but it won't work everywhere, right away.

I like the Plastc concept for filling in the rest. Hope it succeeds. Seems like a useful stopgap, like hybrid cars.
 
Security and encryption aren't there I might as well carry all my cards. Also I don't believe that the banks will be liable for transactions made on this type of card as it's a
'Third party solution not issued by them'. Convenience versus Risk is something that has to be considered
 
Coin, last I heard with my preorder, is letting some people test it now, but it's not really going to ship as the final product until next spring. And it doesn't have near the functionality of this, so I think they're in trouble.

But then again the whole payment landscape may be very different by next summer. With Apple Pay, probably updated Google Wallet, Walmart consortium solution all out there by then, a card like this may be relegated to just a backup solution. And an expensive one at that. I'm not really sure this Plastc and Coin will be able to survive.
 
Sounds pretty awesome to me. If Plastic launches a solid product and :apple:Pay's future is in question, then I'll pick this up.

Preordering now just seems dumb, though. It's at least 8 months away while :apple:Pay is going to start any day now.
 
Apple Pay will be everywhere very soon. I'm not sure how they pulled it off but every major financial institution are ready for its debute. I get notifications and at atm machines from so many credit cards and banks letting me know they'll support Apple Pay on day one.
 
Developed mild interest as I read along. Then got to the $155 price and felt the whole thing deflate like a cartoon balloon.
 
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