[AMA] I am the CEO of DiviPay. Ask me anything!

Hi there,

My name is Daniel and I'm the CEO of DiviPay.

DiviPay lets you instantly create virtual cards that keep you in control of your money. DiviPay virtual cards are powered by Mastercard and can be used to protect yourself from online fraud, stop unwanted subscription fees and spend abroad without paying any transaction fees.

A lot of our users have originated from Illumination's post: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/329572 so we thought it would be helpful to open up a direct line of communication with you all.

Also, if you're interested, Illumination interviewed us about some of the technical aspects of the business on his blog:

https://www.thebulgingwallet.com/home/2018/3/28/interview-wi…

AMA

Related Stores

DiviPay
DiviPay

closed Comments

      • +1

        I think you'll agree that 10.15am is pretty early to be blowing your own aggregated spend limit…

        • Hi, yes i definitely agree, we generally have issues on Mondays as spending is aggregated over the weekend. Our limit resets on an adhoc basis but is generally around midday. We are working on a permanent solution so this doesn't continue to happen in the future.

  • Whoa… I think I have seen you guys sitting around Lv 1 at the Sydney Startup Hub. What's your foundation story?

    • Thats us! Come say hello next time before we move to our new location in Surry Hills. DiviPay started 18months ago as a slightly different product. We offered a digital wallet that allowed groups to split the cost of any purchase in a single transaction. Essentially it was a quick and easy way to open a joint bank account with a virtual card. We made a slight customer segment pivot after we saw a lot of customers using the service to protect individual virtual cards to protect their security and privacy whilst shopping online.

  • Why did you tell other people to give you a positive review? Why not ask them to give a negative review so t doesn't look suspicious?

    • +1

      Lucky for us all of the reviews are organic.

      • +1

        But are they certified organic?

  • Do you have an app? Will your card work with Google Pay or Apple Pay etc?

    • Hi, we are currently focused on our desktop application and browser plugin. However we are working hard to integrate our virtual cards into Android/Apple pay. Once this integration is complete we will have an app ready for download! If there is enough customer support before the PAYS integration we will also launch an app for our current online only product.

  • +1

    Do you fund your account as a whole or each card individually?

    eg.
    Account
    - Card 1 ($100)
    - Card 2 ($50)
    - Card 3 ($20)

    or
    Account ($170)
    - Card 1
    - Card 2
    - Card 3

    • +2

      Hi, currently you fund each card seperately. However we are in the progress of implementing a central account balance which will allow you to load a single balance and transfer funds between cards. We are hoping to implement this in the next 2-3 weeks.

      • Sounds good.

        This will probably make sense when you have a central balance, just out of interest - have you thought about (or considered a use-case) for single transaction cards?

        From the previous descriptions, the cards last a number of months.

        Example:

        For certain foreign websites, the level of trust is quite low and you can't guarantee they won't add additional fraudulent charges are a later date. So you may not want to send through your credit card details, but may want to purchase a once off software license.

        For that case I'd want to use the card exactly once, however wouldn't want to go through the effort of creating the card, loading it, and then cancelling the card straight after.

        It also means for those cards, you can set a short (1-2 day) expiry and re use them quickly rather than having them sit dormant for a while.

        • Yes definitely. We are also working on implementing transaction level controls. So you can set a time to live (e.g. custom expiry) or a transaction limit (per transaction, daily, monthly, yearly etc) The most frequent use case here is people using their DiviPay cards for subscription service. They sign up to say Netflix and want to put a $20 transaction limit per month. That way the merchant can't continue charging them excess fees.

  • It is not letting me load money from my Visa One Card.

    • Hi, please contact us at [email protected] with the email linked to your account and we will look into this issue for you.

      • Hi, I’m facing the same issue all afternoon and have also tried to pay a number of bills with my virtual card but it was declined. I’ve sent you an email about this, can you help?

        • Hi, i believe all issues are now fixed. Please let me know if you have any further trouble. We are running into some payment limit issues this evening due to the large demands on our system over the weekend and today. We are working hard to permanently fix our payment limit issues.

  • Why is there a minimum deposit limit of $5?
    Will you ever allow me to add credit via PayPal? Don't get me wrong but I don't like storing my credit card details in more places than I have to hence the use case for your service.

    • Why i use a prepaid CC for online purchases. Even if i get screwed, it's only going to be up to a few hundred dollars at most. I use the same prepaid CC for PayPal as well.

      This service might be useful to me for a few US sites that only seem to accept CC's rather than PayPal. I can transfer what i need into the virtual CC and go for it.

    • Hi, the $5 minimum limit was imposed to deter people from taking advantage of the service, creating hundreds of virtual card numbers with no funds attached.

      • and the second question?

        • Adding funds via Paypal is on our radar, however at this stage it is too costly for us to provide this as a funding source.

        • @divipay:
          thank you

  • -1

    Google Pay does this already? Why should I use this instead?

    • +1

      Does Google Pay provide a virtual card that you can use in any site that require cc number/date? I'd love that!

    • Hi, As DiviPay generates a Mastercard virtual card our solution can be used at over 40 million merchants worldwide. The DiviPay solution also provides an extra layer of control, allowing customers to create multiple cards for different merchants, setting different spending limits.

  • So let me get this straight, once you have Apple Pay live, I can top up my DiviPay with my NAB Visa and still earn freq flyer points whilst doing my day to day payments via DiviPay on my iPhone? And on top of that, you charge no FX? I assume I can link my DiviPay to my PayPal as with any card? Are you integrated with Pocketbook (budgeting app) so I can still be reminded every day that I'm spending too much on coffees and lunches?

    • So let me get this straight, once you have Apple Pay live, I can top up my DiviPay with my NAB Visa and still earn freq flyer points whilst doing my day to day payments via DiviPay on my iPhone? And on top of that, you charge no FX?

      Yes

      I assume I can link my DiviPay to my PayPal as with any card?

      You can now. I think there were a small number of issues at the beginning but it's been rectified. I have personally tried it.

      Official response

      Are you integrated with Pocketbook (budgeting app) so I can still be reminded every day that I'm spending too much on coffees and lunches?

      I'll leave this to them. Don't know the answer!

    • +2

      Thanks, as illumination mentions yes, the you will be able to use Apple Pay with a DiviPay card funded by your NAB bank card. We currently do not have an integration with pocket book but have discussed the idea internally. We will be more than happy to implement this if our customers see this as an important feature / value add to the DiviPay experience.

  • Hi Daniel, thanks for doing this. I'm at my early 30s and always wanted to startup a business (app/platform). I've been thinking about it for years, but I have no fund, no relationship but just an idea. Could you please share with me 3 things you've learned from starting up a company that you think would help me the most? Thanks!

    • +2

      I am not related to DiviPay, but some points that you may consider:

      1. You're at A, the idea, you want to get to B, the goal. You're gonna need a lot of hard work to get there. Make sure you're passionate and driven enough to work towards that goal even without pay, accommodation or food.

      2. Be realistic, set goals, research and test.

      3. At the A phase don't worry about funds, just focus on working towards B that you believe in. Ideas are everywhere, so investors generally invest in the person behind the idea rather than the idea itself. If you genuinely show drive and evidence to enliven the idea, the funds and relationships may instead actually come to you.

      • Thanks for your advice. I guess making a start requires a lot of courage. Really agree with what you say about "investors generally invest in the person behind the idea rather than the idea itself"

    • +1

      Hi, thanks for your question. Here are my thoughts:

      1. Find a co-founder with complimentary skills to you. Entrepreneurship is hard, there will be times when you feel like giving up, being able to lean on someone else at times is super crucial to your overall success

      2. Just launch something. Don't get caught up in building a perfect product, build and MVP and get it out to the market as quickly as possible. Its the only way you will know if people actually want what you are selling. You could have a great idea, and people could tell you the idea is great but its still only idle interest at that stage. Build an MVP and see if people will actually use your product.

      3. Test and learn and don't be afraid to pivot. Your first idea might not be the thing customers actually want. If you are constantly testing and measuring the outcome of your tests you will have a much better idea of what solutions actually solve real customer problems. Continually test new featuers at an MVP level before you dump a lot of time and resources into them.

  • +1

    I've been looking for a VCC provider for a while but found nothing. Great timing. There's no mention of fees of your services on your website or FAQ, which you definitely need. Care to clarify please?

  • Here I'll provide some insight as to why I might never consider using a service such as DiviPay, in this case specifically DiviPay: (hopefully giving you the opportunity to respond with why I might still find it useful, and what you're doing to cater for these cases in the future).

    The way I assume a company like this makes money is by taking a margin of TX as well as earning interest on users loaded funds, and eventually reclaiming the entirety of funds that are never spent. (There is no mention of virtual card expiry on the FAQ, and what happens to your funds when they expire.)

    As a consumer, I want to choose how I pay, not be forced to pay with AUD.

    I want to be able to proxy all my transactions automatically charging my card when I spend from my virtual cards, instead of loading them with virtual currency.

    This mode of spending doesn't support using credit cards as a means of "loading" the cards as it should (or could in the future) be considered a cash advance.

    So in summary, how I believe it works (without having tried it);

    User wants to buy X for 50 USD, user must pre-load virtual card with 64.49 AUD using a debit card, then proceed to use the virtual card.

    What I want;

    Users wants to buy X for 50 USD, user buys it using virtual card, the card automatically charges the underlying card for either 50 USD or 64.49 AUD (users choice, setting on website).

    One last thing, there's a whole load of protections I'm offered when I purchase something with my credit card, all of which are forfeited when using DiviPay, do you plan to offer any such features? (Price insurance, automatic extended warranty, ability to perform chargeback freely.)

    • As a consumer, I want to choose how I pay, not be forced to pay with AUD.

      DiviPay don't force you to pay with AUD. You'll be charged in whatever currency the merchant charges

      I want to be able to proxy all my transactions automatically charging my card when I spend from my virtual cards, instead of loading them with virtual currency.

      Yea someone above wanted that too. Makes sense actually..

      This mode of spending doesn't support using credit cards as a means of "loading" the cards as it should (or could in the future) be considered a cash advance.

      Not sure what you mean here. Do you mean loading a virtual balance should trigger a cash advance, or having a DiviPay card automatically debit from a linked Credit Card should be a cash advance?

      One last thing, there's a whole load of protections I'm offered when I purchase something with my credit card, all of which are forfeited when using DiviPay, do you plan to offer any such features? (Price insurance, automatic extended warranty, ability to perform chargeback freely.)

      Definitely will leave this to them to answer properly, but I already worry (to an extent) about how they make money as it is with the benefits they're offering now. I really don't know how they'd make money if they actually offered all of that..!

      They offer benefits that usual Credit Cards like those that you've mentioned don't offer. Not to mention, the features you've mentioned are normally only included on Credit Cards with fairly high annual fees.

      Only thing I would say though is the chargeback aspect - you can freely perform a chargeback with DiviPay too - just that it might take longer as you're not getting a bank with 100s of staff to do this for you, but rather a team of 7

      • Banks are definitely loss leading with the benefits provided with a credit card, they aim to make money through lending with high interest rates.

        The site makes it look like you can only load up AUD and the merchants will be paid in whatever currency they want and it will automatically FX it for you (I want to be able to supply USD to DiviPay via my existing CC).

        As for the cash advance, I guess I don't know what the current state is like, if I load my DiviPay Virtual card with a real credit card, will my bank treat it like a cash advance?

        • Hi, Thanks for your feedback. I think Illumination correctly answered a lot of your questions.
          In terms of cash advance fee we are currently not treated as a cash advance. This is typically determined by your bank however at this stage we have not had a problem.

          You are correct in saying all cards are loaded in AUD and then spent in the foriegn currency of the merchant. This is out intended process for the short term.

          In terms of additional features we plan to offer all of the things you mentioned are on the roadmap however as they are costly programs to run we will be offering these services under a premium subscription model.

        • @divipay: Sounds fair, thanks for your reply.

  • Why can't I sign into the browser extension with Google auth? I signed up using that, and now can't sign into the extension :/

    • Hi, sorry for the inconvenience here. To be honest we haven't actually built browser extension login via Google yet. We launched the extension as an MVP to guage interest and get early feedback on the functionality. We will be looking to build additional support and Google login for the browser plugin shortly.

      • Can I at least set a password then? The security tab under my profile comes up blank.

  • +1

    So basically if I need to buy some shady adult services is that where your service comes in?

    • Yep that would probably be a reasonably efficient way to use it..? Haha

  • Hi,
    Very interested in DiviPay.
    Is a DiviPay virtual card associated with your name?

    As a international service I use doesn't accept prepay cards.
    Look forward to hearing from you

    • Is a DiviPay virtual card associated with your name?

      Not "officially" (I think).

      I don't believe name verification is used to "check" a card (ever). Think about times when you're asked to type in a card number, expiry date but no name.

    • Hi, not the name exaclty, however some oversees merchants will run additional checks on credit card purchases, whereby they will try to match the billing address to our companies address. In this instance feel free to use 50 Bridge Street, Sydney, NSW, 2000 as the billing address at checkout.

  • Have you considered waiving the fee for a bank deposit, costs nothing on your end, and you scrape the mastercard fees.

    • I think this would work for them but me (and probably other point hunters) wouldn't like that!

      The beauty of the current set up is the ability to earn points on topping up your DiviPay card with any Mastercard/Visa card you like + waiving FX fees, i.e. indirectly, any points earning card doesn't incur FX fees by paying via DiviPay.

      • A second option, I meant.

    • Hi yes, we are working on bringing in bank account funding. This will hopefully coincide with the launch of our central account balance functionality.

      • Will it kick the fees off?

  • Any plan to support an American Express card based system?
    Am I able to gain Qantas points through the use of a Mastercard?

    • Any plan to support an American Express card based system?

      Not really, maybe some time in the future

      Am I able to gain Qantas points through the use of a Mastercard?

      You will earn whatever reward points your Credit Card normally gives you for expenditure when you top up a DiviPay virtual card

      • That wasn't what I meant with the Qantas points…
        Qantas says that you can achieve 1 Qantas Point per dollar spent on any Mastercard, hence, because DiviPay virtual card is a mastercard, I'm wondering if by using this card, I will achieve said 1 point per dollar.

        • Hi, we currently do not support a points system or have any affiliation with Qantas. However as Illumination suggests you will recieve points when you top up your DiviPay cards.

        • @divipay: Just to clarify however, this mastercard does act like a real one. In that sense, if it does act the same, I will be able to get points off it.

  • This is a really interesting product, especially because it is 'free.'

    For me the #1 use case would be making multiple Divipay cards to sign up for the myriad of free trials that require a unique card number to identify you - does your company care that people are using your service in this way?

    I don't care about privacy, I just want unlimited free Stan trials

    • Our mission is to protect the user and give them more control. Whilst taking advantage of free trials is definitely one use case of the service we hope to convert more of your online spending onto the DiviPay platform.

  • Can these only be used online?

    • Currently yes. The cards will work at any online checkout that accepts Mastercard.

  • Sorry if its been asked before.
    I created a virtual card and deposited $10.

    The expiry date of virtual card is 10/18.
    can this be extended or need to spend before due date?

    • It can kind of be extended. They say if it expires you'll just get issued a new one with the cash on the card.

    • Hi, You will recieve an email from us a few weeks before the card is due to expire. When the card expires we will simply create a new card for you and transfer the balance across. We are working on providing cards with longer expiry dates 2-3 yrs with the ability for the customer to manually set the expiry themselves.

      • cheers. appreciate it

  • =O =O Does this mean free Netflix for life?

  • -1

    Any bargains ?

  • My question is, did you start this thread as a subtle way to gain free advertising for the business?

    • Hi, we wanted to do this AMA because a lot of our earliest customers came from Ozbargain and illuminations post. They have been critical in providing feedback and helping us create a better platform. We thought this would be a cool way to openly discuss the product with the community and answer any questions.

      • That makes very good sense. Thanks for answering.

  • @divipay: For years, virtual one-off use cards have been very popular in the U.S. Nearly every bank there provides this feature. Why, in your opinion, it hasn't so far really taken off here in Australia?

    • +1

      Hi, good question. As you mention virtual cards have been around for a while, however I believe we haven't really explored all the best ways they could be used. Primarily they were used for corporate travel expenses with very little being done in the consumer space. I believe with the emergence of mobile payment technology and online banking the consumer has become more willing to try virtual solutions. My guess is the Banks here in Australia are more focused on the majority of customers, rather than looking at innovating and servicing different niche markets.

  • Your business model is very interesting.
    You mentioned in an earlier comment that you receive interchange fee (due to being an issuer).

    From a funding perspective, when a customer charge his/her debit/credit card, wouldn't you also be charged a merchant service fee?

    If so, are you looking at other potential funding options that may be "cheaper", e.g. Direct Entry, BPAY, cash deposit at bank/post office, etc?

    I can understand that you may be reluctant because the funds may not be available immediately (which would be a downside to some customers). I am assuming that this is why you made the earlier comment about NPP.

  • After my shitty experience with Square and some fiasco's with them i'm keen as beans on DiviPay.

    Firstly, I'm in an odd sales role whereby I get crappy wage but make loads of Spif payments on prepaid visa cards and westfield cards and such, i've always wanted to buy things online but limited to $25 cards and purchases at a time I hope I can load all these small cards in to one proper big card.

    Some side questions:
    1. If the card I use expires, i.e. i've sat on some prepaid credit cards for almost a year because the pain they are to spend online etc what would happen in a refund or payout situation when the card I used is expired, same goes for a normal credit card I suppose to.
    2. In addition to the above, can I load 20+ cards and then after a few months if not used push the balance out to one card instead?
    3. Any chance of adding a "add funds on different card" button or something as i'm trying to add to the wallet and changing the funding card each time is a bit of a bummer.

    • +1

      Hi thanks for your questions, you can definitely use the service to aggregate some of your cards into one.
      1. Are you refering to a DiviPay card? If in the case a DiviPay card expires and you recieve a merchant refund, we will simply record the refund and transfer the balance onto a new DiviPay card for you.
      2. Unfortunately refunds can only be processed back to the funding cards in which they came from. This a legal requirement as part of Anti Money Laundering.
      3. Can you please explain this a little more? Im not quite sure i am following. We are building the ability to store a central balance on your account which may solve this problem for you?

      • Thanks for replying.

        1. I was referring to the original source funding card, as Most of my prepaid cards are likely to expire in the next month or so, if I need to refund out then the cards would be inactive and expired at that time. Seems to make more sense to retain on Divipay obviously.

        2. Understood.

        3. When I was adding the multitude of cards to consolidate them all, each time I needed to go to my profile, change the source card then jump back to the card to add the funds. It would be good to have an option within a card to add a new source card so I can add funds from a single page. i.e many $25/50 cards to add is a fair bit of jumping between pages.

        • +1

          ofcourse!
          1. I will need to clarify the rules around gift cards and refunding money to expired cards. Generally the issuer of the Gift Card will be notified of the refund and will have to provide you with the funds. They build something into their own T&Cs though that makes it difficult for your to retrieve the funds.
          3. This makes sense. The feature isn't currently on our roadmap as our main use case is not about gift card aggregation, however it is something we will discuss moving forward.

  • Great AMA, i'm testing it out today by making a deposit and will likely buy from site like Gearbest. Really happy that I can earn Qantas points from my bank credit card, while getting good FX rate and no overseas transaction fee. One suggestion is the ability to name the cards rather than just 'Card 1'

    • One suggestion is the ability to name the cards rather than just 'Card 1'

      You can. Literally first prompt after clicking "Create virtual card" is "Enter virtual card name"

      • Thanks, I actually should have said the ability to rename existing cards which I can’t find the option to do.

        • Ah, you might be right on that..

          This would actually be a nice little addition!

    • Thanks for testing out the platform! As illumination mentions you can call your card whatever you like initially. Im interested to hear more about why you would like to rename existing cards? Any feedback would be really helpful.

      • Just that I went with the default ‘Card 1’ name when I initially opened last year and now I’m properly using it I wanted to rename it. Very small thing, focus on bigger issues first, I can always make a new card if required!

  • Does Latitude Financial have a problem with you guys? Being able to get 6 month interest free and no foreign transaction fee when loading over 250 AUD is amazing.

  • I know I can go to your careers page and apply for jobs. But do you have a job for administration assistant?

    • Hi, We we weill be hiring a number of roles over the coming months. Please feel free to send me your resume [email protected] and i will contact you if a suitable role becomes available.

  • How do I close my account? I do not see myself needing it at all. I opened one because a deal using divipay was good but never got around to it.

    I want my details removed and my account deleted permanently

    • Hi, please send an email to [email protected] from the email associated with your account and we will permanently remove you from the system.

  • Are there any particular types of transactions that are banned?

    • Hi, currently transactions related to gambling companies will not work.

      • Cash equivalent transactions, makes sense.

  • The chrome extension logs me off every 5 min.
    I understand it is a security thing but its annoying as hell to log in every few min…

    Also there is no refresh of balance once purchase is made.
    I have to log out and log back in to see the updated balance.

    • Hi, thanks for the feedback. Currently the extension is set to log you out every hour. Any more information on the behaviour you are experience with the 5 minute logout would be really helpful for us to diagnose the issue. Balances currently can take up to 30 minutes to update on the platform. We are working on upgrades to our platform that will provide real time updates.

      • Not even 5 min. It logs me out within couple of min. Ideally this should be set to once a day or always log in on private computer

  • If I pay the airline ticket using your service and when check-in sometime they will check your credit card, will that be a problem?

    • Hi, some of our customers were discussing this earlier in the thread. You can show the virtual card online to the airline staff however I cannot guarantee it wont be a problem. Theoretically it should be fine and a number of customers have used this method, however it really comes down to the discretion of the airline.

  • What billing address on your cards, can i change it?

Login or Join to leave a comment