On an AMA, the CEO of Plutus (who cannot be trusted to say anything remotely true tbf) stated that Curve pay Plutus up to 7 figures per year.
Given that Curve has never been profitable, I find this hard to believe.
But if there’s any truth to it, there’s something very strange going on with the relationship, especially as Curve is the only way to use Plutus without paying an extortionate amount for a card.
Plutus is circling the drain anyway.
“up to” is probably doing a lot of heavy lifting there. It wouldn’t surprise me if they got a cut of the subscriptions paid by a Plutus card but like you said Plutus makes Curve look like a well-oiled machine in comparison!
Anyone know when they are lifting the restriction on the number of cards you can add to the basic plan?
I received an email about 10 days ago stating this would be soon? Still can’t add more than 3 at the moment.
Isn’t Curve meant to be coming out with a like Apple Wallet alternative?
Pretty sure once it’s a wallet on Apple it’ll allow many more.
In the EU, yes
I am an android user so Google Pay for me.
Maybe I misunderstood what they’re doing with the wallet features then.
I found that out last night when I accidently used the wrong card and wanted to GBIT. The card is a new one I got as a replacement and as soon as I went to add it, I got the familiar upgrade screen. Easily resolved by removing one and adding another, this feels like Curve simply sent the email too early
In the UK they’re doing nothing with the wallet feature.
In the EU, the rules there means that Apple have been told they can no longer restrict mobile phone payments to their own Apple Wallet and have to let other companies be able to setup their own payment alternative to Apple Wallet on iPhones. So, Curve have announced they’ll be launching their own alternative.
It’s only in the EU as neither the UK or US governments have forced anything similar (yet).
I suppose they might also launch it on Android worldwide if they wanted to. I’m still not clear exactly what their selling point will be on either platform though as the card already works on Google/Apple Pay.
There ‘selling point’ on doing this on iPhone in the EU is that legally, when they launch, Apple will have to give every user in the EU a pop-up choice to select their Wallet app.
I’m not sure what Curve’s current reach is with people - their website claims 5 million, but they’ll suddenly be in front of over 100 million EU customer.
Wouldn’t put it past Starling to put out a similar product.
They already offer Engine, why not one step further?
Just reopened my Curve account.
I remember back when I closed it some cards were charging cash advance for all Curve transactions.
Is that still the case with Virgin and Barclaycard cards?
Oh I get why they’re doing it, but what would they offer over just leaving the Curve card on Apple Pay and using the Curve app as is?
Virgin is putting them through as purchases for me.
Money - any transaction that goes through Apple Pay, Apple get a small payment for it from the banks.
If Curve can skip Apple, they get to keep that.
Yes - 0.15% is the cut Apple gets. However, the banks have little choice but to support Apple Pay, as it’s an expected feature and is demanded by their customer base.
I don’t see what sway Curve would have in that regard. No bank is going to voluntarily work with them or agree to pay them a cut of card spend. There is no incentive to do so.
If Curve are still charging your underlying card in the background, their processing fees will wipe out any interchange they get from using their virtual Mastercard as a proxy… my understanding was that their business is only viable right now due to subs.
I’m yet to see how they are going to make money from this wallet thing. Happy to be educated though, if any one knows how it’s going to work?
What we don’t want is multiple wallet apps. The EU means well on this an I support reigning in Apple & Google’s monopolies, but anything that fragments mobile wallets in the way that messaging, sports coverage etc. is a blow for the consumer.
That’s a benefit for Curve sure, but not for the user. I’m sure they will do something but it isn’t clear to me at this point.
What’s wrong with Apple Pay and google pay? The fee is absorbed by banks. Supported in apps and in browser on most of the websites. Imagine you now have curve pay. How many merchants would integrate with it? Plutus only 
This is solving a problem that does not exist