Curve Offers New Wrinkle in Financial Time

If you’ve ever had one of those days when you used the wrong payment card, Curve understands your frustrations. A recent UK financial technology startup, Curve allows you to take those occasional boneheaded moves—like when you pay for a personal purchase with a work card or the like—back, transferring payments made on one card to another, fee-free.

There are some limits to this, of course; Curve can only offer its transaction-shifting technology on purchases made within two weeks of when you want to do it. So there will be no shifting of Valentine’s Day purchases on Arbor Day, for example, but if you bought something on February 13 you wish was on a different card February 15, it shouldn’t be a problem.

Curve has recently set up an alliance with Mastercard to help bring this new payment system to the fore, and the ability to alter transactions in such a fashion is said to be the first of its kind anywhere. Curve further noted that two major banks were set to provide backing for the system, but just which banks these would be was unannounced.

This ability actually has an unexpected side effect; it becomes possible, essentially, to use the Curve card system and only that, since later, users can switch the payments from one platform to another just by using a mobile phone tool. The system is currently in beta, but it has over 50,000 signups at last report, and has passed around $64.6 million in transactions so far.

It’s shockingly convenient, and should do well for those people who have multiple credit cards, particularly for multiple purposes. Those who like to use credit cards to track spending should be especially happy, and the value of being able to readily switch between work and personal cards should likewise be welcome.

Curve has effectively created a shockingly versatile payment system, and it’s no wonder Mastercard’s throwing in on this. It may not be versatile for everyone, but it’s likely to have a market ready to go. The fact that the beta’s done so well as it has so far is a clear sign of interest, and there will likely be more to come.