[TechCrunch Beijing] Coin’s Kanishk Parashar: Store All Your Cards on the Coin

Those sick of carrying around scores of cards in their wallets will embrace Coin, a card that allows you to store your credit and debit card information, as well as practically any card that can be swiped, all in one place.

Kanishk Parashar, the founder of Coin, introduced Coin and also did a live product demo at TechCrunch Beijing this morning.

“In the market, we often try to create solutions that are technology based,” said Parashar, “We tell them that they can use their fingerprint to pay, and come up with other types of technology to make it secure and better.”

“However, technology doesn’t drive options, because real world commerce is so large that to get the technology in pace, you have you change a lot of people’s minds. If the consumers start using (a new technology), then merchants also have to change, and vice versa.”

Parashar went on to add that new technology that is introduced in the payments sphere has to allow users to do what they are already used to, but with new features in their lives which makes it useful for them. This is where Coin comes in.

The Coin, a slim black device that fits into your wallet and stores all your card information.

“It looks and feels like a plastic card, excepts it to hold all your cards in one and then lets you use them anywhere cards are accepted,” Parashar declared, holding up the slim black plastic card that is the Coin.

In his live demo, Parashar shows the audience how one switches between different credit cards on the Coin, by pressing a small button until the display shows the card you want to use. He clicks the button and ‘VISA’ appears on the display – he then demonstrates swiping the card through a payment terminal just like how one normally swipes a credit card and signing off on his purchase. He repeats the demonstration for good measure, but this time pressing the button to choose his ‘AMEX’ card instead.

To upload multiple cards to the Coin, users swipe their cards through a card-swipe dongle that they receive with their Coin to upload them onto the Coin mobile app. The app then loads the information onto your Coin card.

The Coin has proved to be extremely popular in the US – launched last year in San Francisco, over 1 million dollars of Coin sales were racked up within the first five hours of launch. Parashar also mentioned that China is starting out in the offline space, and is a potential market for the Coin.