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Smart card Plastc goes under despite $9 million in preorders
Plastc, a smart payment card that can store all your CC details, promised to be the only plastic you'll ever need to bring when it started taking pre-orders in 2014. Now, almost three years and countless shipment delays later, the company threw in the towel. In a statement posted on its website, Plastc says it has officially shut down on April 20th and will file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. According to a Magnify Money editorial, Plastc raised $9 million from 80,000 pre-orders. It wasn't and will not be able to fulfill any of them.
Will LG's payment card succeed where others have failed?
A new report out of the Korea Herald revives the rumor that LG's going to try something different with its own foray into mobile payments. As we reported earlier this year, the company has been working on a system that uses a standalone digital credit card rather than an NFC chip inside your smartphone. Apparently the Korean conglomerate had planned to launch the product at the start of the year, but held off to foster better relations with banks. But given how other attempts at reinventing the credit card have gone, is LG really going to crack a winning formula?
LG will reportedly unveil a universal payment card next month
When LG announced it was readying its own payments service last year, it appeared that the company would follow the path travelled by Apple, Google and Samsung and launch a mobile-first solution. However, if this leak from Korea's Electronic Times is anything to go by, LG Pay won't require a smartphone at all, but instead try to replace all of your credit and debit cards with a universal solution called the "White Card."
Plastc wants to be the only credit card you'll ever need
Your fat wallet wants to meet Plastc -- a device which its manufacturers claim can replace most of the credit/gift/loyalty cards you currently mule about. It works by pairing with an app on your phone (via Bluetooth), which provides near unlimited storage for all your cards (Plastc itself can only store up to 20). The app also logs your transaction history. Does this all sound a little familiar? That's because you're probably recalling a similar device called Coin launched back in 2013. Just like Plastc, it, too, can store various card details that you can call up, depending on which one you want to use. The bad news is that Coin, which promised to ship the first units this year, moved its ETA to spring 2015 (though there's a beta test going on) -- something pre-order customers obviously weren't happy with. So, one has to wonder if an unknown company will be able to do what Coin couldn't and release such an ambitious product on time?
