Scrip – A Modern Replacement for Cash
Nowadays, we hardly carry any form of cash along with us. We mostly rely on our credit cards and debit cards. With the help of plastic money, Android Pay and Apple Pay, our financial transactions have become hassle free and invisible. With the emerging shift from tangible money to digital currency, many companies are trying to create applications that would make financial transactions quick and simple. Scrip is one of those latest innovations that intends to turn off useless spending of money.
What is Scrip?
San Francisco-based New Deal Design has come up with a device that allows making payments for your purchases by simply swiping its surface. Scrip is designed with an idea to remove cash transactions from our daily lives and use digital cash. It is basically a cash device, which feels like having a portable ATM in your pocket. It is said to be a modern replacement for cash.
The concept created by New Deal Design aims to bring the physicality back to money simulating the positives of a cash transaction. The device can be pre-loaded with your spending cash from bank or ATM and is designed to influence our financial autopilot.
The Brain Behind this Sci-fi Idea
Gadi Amit, the designer of the widely popular FitBit, conceived the idea of Scrip. At New Deal Design, their main purpose of creating a device like Scrip is to evoke the nostalgia of a cash exchange, but at the same time, eliminating the poor spending habits that are often caused by digital transactions.
Amit pointed out that debit cards and credit cards promote irresponsible spending, while on the other hand, using cash for payments makes you realize and keep a check on how much you are spending and where you are spending. The feeling of gaining or losing money is actually present in this device and it restores human experience back to digital cash.
The Design
Scrip is a copper-coloured device, in the shape of a capsule, that has ridges on the top and space for a tiny numerical screen on one end, while the bottom of the device is smooth. The design is such that it gives you a benign and meaningful feel of a physical transaction. It includes the boost of Oxytocin that you get while giving or receiving cash, or the pain you feel while spending a lot. With Scrip, New Deal Design dreams of building something sleek, sci-fi, and useful at the same time.
How will it work?
- Interface: The tiny ridges on the top would act like a braille display, rising and receding in order to generate numbers. The denominations physically ripple to the surface and add tangibility, while simulating an act similar to giving and receiving cash.
- Payments made easy: To make a payment, you simply point the device at an NFC payment terminal and swipe your thumb across its surface. Scrip will transfer that amount of money from your bank account. For an instance, if you are charged with $25, thumb the Scrip to shell out a ‘20’ and a ‘5’.
- Safety and sharing: People can pass each other money by tapping on their Scrips, exchange currency in foreign countries and can also set the device to lock up if it gets too far from their phone.
Conclusion
Scrip could replace refilling debit cards and add features like making users swipe more slowly, the more money they spend. Scrip aims at filling the gap between the luxury of digital and the need for physical. Scrip could help users better manage their spending. The device would use Bluetooth for authenticating the user’s identity, by pairing with their mobile devices.
Dhruvil is a Writer & Marketeer for Nimblechapps, joined in December 2014, based out of Sydney, Australia. He has worked briefly as a Branding and Digital Marketing Manager before moving to Australia. At Nimblechapps, he worked on Social Media Marketing, Branding, Email Marketing and Blogging. Dhruvil studies Business at University of Western Sydney, and also handles Operations for the company in Australia.