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Pocket Change Mobile App Combines Chore Reminders with Reloadable Debit Card

Mobile Commerce Insider Featured Article

April 15, 2014

Pocket Change Mobile App Combines Chore Reminders with Reloadable Debit Card

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By Michelle Nicolson
TMCnet Contributing Writer

It’s an age-old parenting technique with a modern twist — paying kids an allowance for doing chores, except instead of a cash transaction, everything happens via a smartphone.


A new mobile app called the Pocket Change Card is designed to remind kids about their chore list while enabling parents to pay allowances via a reloadable debit card. The company behind the app has launched an Indiegogo campaign to get the app off the ground.

“Development of this application really started when my daughter came to me and said, ‘Dad, I want allowance,’” said Myles Binford, founder of Pocket Change, Inc. “I reached in my pocket and realized that I don’t carry cash anymore. So I decided to figure out a way to use my smartphone to transfer money from my checking account onto a card that she would be able to use at school or at the mall.”

Pocket Change includes a reloadable Visa debit card linked to the user’s credit card accounts, debit card accounts and bank accounts, all of which reportedly can be monitored and controlled through Pocket Change’s smartphone app. Pocket Change also provides family accounts where parents have full-privilege debit cards, and each child will have their own sub-cards onto which the parents can transfer money.

“We’re building software right now that sends a chore reminder to the child’s phone,” Binford explained. “Then, after the child does that chore, they can click ‘done’ and the parents will get a personal notification that the chore is done. When the parents see the notification they can click ‘pay’, and it goes into a queue, and the kids get money transferred to their debit cards once a week.”

In addition to making retail purchases from online vendors, Binford says application users can easily pay out and receive funds from anyone with a debit card or bank account and an email address, Twitter (News - Alert) handle or Facebook account.

The company has played close attention to security, a major concern for mobile transactions. In addition to being able to turn the debit card on or off using the phone app, all online purchases reportedly are made using a temporary CVV number, assigned at the time of purchase and valid for 20 minutes only.

“It wouldn’t matter if a card thief knew your name, your card number, your card’s expiration date, and the CCV number you used for a purchase last night,” Binford said. “They could not make a purchase with your card this morning, as they would not have a valid three-digit CCV number. And if this patented card security protocol isn’t enough to put your mind at ease, your money and your account are 100 percent insured from loss by Visa, MasterCard (News - Alert), and the FDIC.”

The company also reports the app will have no monthly fees, no fees to load the card, no fees to send and receive money from other users, and no fees when using the card at point-of-purchase when signing the sales receipt.




Edited by Maurice Nagle


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