That approach generally doesn't work from a legal perspective: prepaid tokens are often treated as e-money (especially if it's not for company's own products or services), and in many jurisdictions, holding value for users requires an e-money/money transmitter license.

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ta12653421 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

In EU, this depends mainly on the question of exchange/interchangeability: If you sell them as vouchers and do not allow redeeming/payout in the original cash, its not a problem.

	▲	strnisa 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		The key legal issue is interchangeability. Single-merchant vouchers are generally acceptable. If a voucher can be used across multiple merchants, it's often treated as e-money in the EU. Not being able to use funds across multiple merchants would significantly reduce the value for customers, as they would no longer be able to share payment processing fees across merchants.

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freakynit 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I kind of expected this, though not want this way :( ... it seems governments will go to any extent to prevent creation of alternative source of value other than the one they can fully control... for good mostly, bad at other times..

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NoahZuniga 3 days ago | parent [-]

Surely you want any company that offers a prepaid credit card to be regulated, so that you can be extremely sure they won't just take your money and run.

And what really is the difference between a prepaid credit card and prepaid credits you can use at a large selection of tech companies. (Legally there is no distinction)

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freakynit 3 days ago | parent [-]

The problem is the constant charge part that comes along with the percentage part of commissions that payment processors companies takes.

Spending 100$ in 1 dollar each transactions mean I end up spending extra 30$, on top of the percentage charges.

A system based on tokens only takes the percentage part(as expected), but the constant part is added just once.

It opens up per-request charging model, across service providers.

This benefits both: the consumers for obvious reasons, and sellers since now customers don't have to "commit" to subscription or a large charge for a servive they may or may not use or continue.

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NoahZuniga 3 days ago | parent [-]

I don't really see the connection between my comment and your reply. Constant charges aren't necessary for regulatory reasons?

	▲	freakynit 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Misread your question. Apologies.