On-demand black car service Uber is making it easier for new users to sign up for rides, thanks to its newly-announced Card.io integration. For those unfamiliar with the mobile payments startup Card.io (a competitor with Jumio), it’s a mobile toolkit that allows app publishers to speed up the process of collecting users’ credit card information. Instead of requesting users to fill out forms by typing in their credit card details on their phone’s tiny keyboards, Card.io allows you to simply hold up your credit card in front of the phone’s camera. The app then “sees” the card, reads the numbers and enters the information for you.
Like its well-funded competitor Jumio, Card.io’s service is now available both on mobile and the web, and developers can choose to associate it with their own merchant account or can choose to use Card.io as their complete end-to-end solution.
Uber (disclosure, CrunchFund-ed) says it has implemented the new feature in their latest iPhone app update, and plan to add it to their Android app next. Although Uber didn’t name which of the services it chose in its brief company blog post, Card.io CEO Mike Mettler confirmed it’s indeed them that Uber is talking about over there.
Uber, while a buzzy name in the startup scene, is actually only one of some now 200+ developers that have integrated the toolkit into their apps. The company has $1 million in seed funding, and expanded to support online merchants last month.