Manage and Secure All of Your Credit Cards with Coin

There are many different applications on the market that will allow you to digitally make payments and manage your money. We have featured payment solutions in the past like Square Cash and PayPal, but there are other solid digital payment options on the market that are worth your consideration. One of the most exciting options is called Coin and it will be out this summer!

The appeal of Coin is that it makes managing multiple credit cards easy by providing users with a single solution that consolidates the cards carried in a wallet down to one physical Coin card. The card is the same size as your standard credit card, with the exception of being a little thicker on certain parts to allow for some electronics like a small digital screen that displays which card is being scanned. All of this technology fits into a scannable card that nestles inside your wallet just like a regular card.

It's the mission of Coin to clear out your wallet and make managing your cards easy, and Coin isn't limited to just credit cards. Coin will allow you to consolidate gift cards, reward cards, and more. However, Coin does have a limit of eight cards, which is enough to free up significant space in your pocket. The biggest value of Coin may not be from less clutter or greater convenience, but that it lets you keep track of all of your loose cards so that you can avoid that horrible feeling of rummaging through everything twelve times over looking for the one important missing card.

To use Coin, a user will scan their cards and account information with a card scanner and smartphone app that comes with the Coin card. Unlike the physical Coin card, the Coin app can store an unlimited number of accounts. Syncing the card info to the Coin card is easy to do, and selecting which loaded card you want to use during purchase is as easy as swapping between the different cards with a button on the card. With the desired card selected on the Coin card, all you have to do is swipe it like a normal credit card and the purchase will show up on your statement as it normally does.

The Coin card uses Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to sync with a user's smartphone, and there is a small battery embedded in the card that powers it. With the first generation of Coin cards, recharging the battery is not possible, which means that a new Coin card must be purchased when the battery dies. The battery of the Coin card is expected to last two years on average, so it's a good idea to buy a backup card around the two year mark before you ditch your cards and get stuck with a dead Coin card while on an important business trip.

Thanks to BLE technology, the Coin card has a cool security feature. BLE needs to be within a certain distance of a user's smartphone in order to use it, so if your card is stolen, it would be worthless unless the thief also nabbed the user's smartphone. If the BLE connection is dropped, then the smartphone will be alerted, making it almost impossible to leave the Coin card behind. Coin is also advertising that the card will be as durable as a regular credit card, and it is even designed to be water resistant.

Coin looks like it will be a great solution to manage all of your credit cards, as well as a solid way to prevent credit card theft. When Coin is released this summer, it is expected to cost $50. You can visit Coin's website for more details and to preorder it. Coin appears to be a wonderful financial tool, but it's not the only solution on the market. For our next blog article we will feature Google Wallet so you can compare the two and pick out which solution best fits you.