We've made a new way for you guys to make payments, roast it!

[abbie333]

Hi,

My name is Adoba, I would like to share my startup with you guys to roast.

website - https://www.riftpay.io

Rift is an online web and mobile platform that allows users to make shared payments, share funds, and combine their spending power together in real time to make payments. And now more than ever users online are sharing resources, accounts(Adobe, Slack), services (Hulu, Tv), bills(Rent), and more and infant 35% of millennials share payments & their spending power is expected to reach $1.4 Trillion in 2020. What we still do not have is an effective way to make these payments together. Rift simply aims to disrupt the payment market by providing an effective and efficient way for :

1. Users to combine funds together to make payments in real time.
2. Providing users an alternative way to make payments online
3. A more effective and automatic way to share payments (Rents, Utilities, Subscriptions, Meals) and more.
4. Allowing users to make purchases online or in physical stores by combining / splitting or sharing their funds together in real time without having to make splits or send money to each other.
5. Allowing users to make direct recurring transactions together.
6. Users checking out on sites to share the payments immediately, Uber, Lyft, Dominos, Grubhub, Doordash. Imagine being able to share payments on checkout while just paying for yourself alone while the entire transaction goes through. For example, on a $80 purchase on Grubhub you may be buying with other people, you checkout with your card while covering the entire $80 but your card is only charged for what you are paying while the others get their cards charged automatically, as long as they agree. A process that takes seconds and is as easy as checking out.

Roast it and feel free to join as well!

 

[net]

@abbie333 "Venmo me the $20"..?

 

[abbie333]

@net No imagine being in a group with 5 people, you have to pay $100 before asking everyone else for $20.

Imagine the one covering rent of $2000 you have to pay that and hope everyone else pays you back.

It’s the convenience that you’ll love.

 

[net]

@abbie333 So using the rent example-
If you have 5 people paying $400 for the month, what if one of the $400 payments fails? Does $1600 in rent get processed to the landlord or $0 in rent?

And who/how does that $400 missing payment get chased up?
Are you still left just 'hoping that everyone pays'?

 

[t3h11]

@net Interesting questions. These will be user experiences that need to be answered. I’d be interested to hear how the devs reply to this one and if the failed payment scenario had been addressed yet.

 

[abbie333]

@net Great question!
We have the option to set a fall back. The fall back could either be the creator of the transaction or it could be agreed to be split amongst the rest of the people.

If the fall back is shared, $100 is shared among everyone in the transaction, and in the transaction review they’d see that they got charged an extra $100 because of a certain person, and the person would have a settle option to pay them back directly.
So if you, I and 3 others went out to eat, the bill was $100, each of us would pay $25, I decide to use my card to cover the $100 transaction,(I’d only get charged $25) let’s say someone else is $5 short, someone would cover the $5 most likely the person who is paying or have it shared among the group.

We are also testing out a credit feature, if I and 4 other people were living together, we’d create a group and most likely call it apartment bills. We’d set a credit estimating how much we’d be paying every month, ($5,000), we’d each then have a credit card attached to the group, we can make payments as a group together, and at the end of the month we settle the payment together as a group.

I feel the credit option would be most likely used in the scenario you stated above.
But yes in your scenario above, the remaining fee could be split equally among the rest if they decide to or if they don’t, either the transaction fails or just $1600 goes.
Really depends on their choice. At the end of the day, those are really the only things that could happen if someone misses their payment.

Does this make sense? Great question btw!!

 

[net]

@abbie333 I hate to speak ill of something you've obviously spent time and effort on - but it's doomed to fail for one simple reason - you're asking EVERYONE in the group to be responsible for 'that guy' who never pays for his dinner when the group goes out.

It's hard enough to get ONE person to stump up and settle it - but if you want me to use an app for 'payment convenience', but my participation now means I have to pay my share for 'that guy', that's gonna be a no for me dawg. And everyone else. It's against ones own interests to use this app.

So your entire value proposition - avoiding the 'hope they pay' scenario - is doomed by the same reasons that make it attractive - human nature.

 

[abbie333]

@net You don’t have to cover the person not at all. Like I explained it’s an option, if you feel something has to be paid in full and you guys can cover it upfront for the person, then you can share the cover fee, but if you guys don’t want to, either the transaction fails or the money goes and his transaction is a failure. You can see who failed to pay. It’s really up to the users. No way you have to cover someone’s fee who doesn’t pay.

 

[truthevenifyouhateit]

@abbie333 I have to agree with traveling_chap. I can't see myself wanting the option of picking up the slack for another person. In this case, you have to think of the demographic. People using your app are those who need to split costs (middle class and lower). That being the case, then they will most likely not have the extra funds to cover their friend when needed, especially with high-cost items like rent.

Your credit idea could be solid though. I'm not sure what state you're operating from, but maybe you could register as a credit lender, making your company the required "fall back guy". Of course, there are logistics beyond my understanding when it comes to that, but that is how I think you could keep your value proposition. Take this example:

Four people (A, B, C, D) rents a place for $2000/month and agrees to split it equally; $500/month. Person C cannot make rent for February. RiftPay pays Person C's share ($500) but, per the agreement when signing up, Person C now owes RiftPay $500 plus interest. You agree to collect that in monthly payments plus interest until paid in full.

 

[sarahpierce]

@abbie333 So your transfering the risk of someone not paying from the landlord to the renters? What I'm understanding is if someone doesn't pay rent, then all other renters pick up the slack and the landlord, who actually vetted and signed a contract with the missing renter, is still payed?

 

[colbaltheart]

@sarahpierce This starts to get into contextual nuances.

If the landlord has signed an agreement with each tenant separately, then there is no need for this app. Each tenant has to pay their rent to the landlord directly and if one fails to pay that is between the landlord and that one tenant solely.

If one tenant has taken on the lease wholly and then each of the sub-tenants agrees to pay him. That's when this app might become useful and that's when having the primary tenant set as the fall-back option for picking up the tab for missed payments would work.

The grey area would be when the landlord has 1 lease with ALL of the tenants named on it. I'm not sure how popular these are in real life and I would imagine, in this case, sharing the missed payment across all tenants would be fairest.

 

[britxleir]

@abbie333 How do you make money? users will experience double dipping bank transfer/cc fees on top of your cut?

 

[abbie333]

@britxleir No cut on our side. You can transfer it to your bank next day for free too!
If you want your money instantly in your debit card or bank, it’s a 1.7% charge and that’d be the only fee you’d have to pay.
1.7 is less than Cash App & PayPal for same day transfers &. .7% > Venmo.
Ours is also the option to transfer to bank as well as your debit & credit.

 

[empta]

@abbie333 Are you taking money or handling payments yourself? How are you handling PCI Compliance to make sure you're not shut down with millions of dollars in fines?

 

[empta]

@abbie333 How are you handling PCI Compliance so that you're not fined into oblivion and shut down, as well as keeping member's information safe? Please tell me you have a 3rd party handling all that.

 

[abbie333]

@empta Definitely not handling anything sensitive on our end! We have a full fledged financial institution to help us with compliance, and we’d be fully backed!

 

[empta]

@abbie333 Are you taking money or handling payments yourself? How are you handling PCI Compliance to make sure you're not shut down with millions of dollars in fines?