Coin – One Coin for All of Your Cards

Coin is a product with the much sought after goal of reducing wallet size. With rewards cards, gift cards, credit cards, and debit cards, it is easy to lose track of which card does what or where each card is. Coin centralizes all of your cards into one credit card via an iPhone Application.

Coin looks like a credit card and functions similarly. The only differences are that Coin is an electronic card that accesses card data on all gift cards, credit cards, rewards cards… Coin’s goal is to reduce wallet size and organize all of the cards in your life. To achieve this, Coin has streamlined your phone with your credit cards. To use Coin, the owner first downloads an iPhone application. Next, the user attaches a small widget-like accessory (shown below) to the iPhone device and begins swiping in his or her cards. Finally, the user can use Coin like a normal card, expensing whenever necessary. When a user wants to alternate between cards, he or she just taps the golden circle to select which card to use.

The small white device connected to the iPhone is where you swipe in cards

Keeping to the streamlined philosophy between the phone and the card, Coin includes a Bluetooth system. In case you were to leave your card behind, your iPhone device reminds you that the Coin credit card must not be near by. It achieves this because the Coin and the iPhone are in constant communication via a low-powered Bluetooth signal.

Perhaps one important consideration before indulging into this new, chic technology is the security repercussions of centralizing all of your credit card information. While there is relatively little information on how Coin encrypts/protects user data (for a good reason), it is a good idea to think about the advantages of card centralization versus the risk of putting a lot of financial resources in one basket.