Why Coin won’t change the bank card game

elegant, but…

Bank card aggregation solution, Coin, is all over the news and social web. It’s fantastically innovative and elegant. The card, logo and web designer(s) deserve to win awards. But here’s my “fearless prediction”. It won’t gain much market share. Reasons:

1. People carry several card-like things other than credit cards (driver’s license, AAA, insurance, business cards etc), so it isn’t actually solving the problem of multiple cards. The vast majority of people will still need a multi-card holder.

2. Most people have two to four credit/debit cards they may use, not eight, so the status quo is manageable for them.

3. Many people, especially in the early-adopter market, are attached the prestige of their platinum / AMEX etc cards. That disappears somewhat with Coin, replaced by whiz-bang, which isn’t the same thing no matter how pretty because your barista or the guy who fixes your Macbook might also have one.

4. Phone-based digital wallet adoption coming “very soon”.

5. The name is misleading and will confuse some people and suppress interest and adoption somewhat.

6. If Coin gains any traction (and maybe if it doesn’t), credit card issuers will integrate the RFID missing card alert into their offerings, negating the advantage.

So what we have then is a beautiful, elegant niche product; not one that solves a significant problem for enough people to make it a game-changer.