mmcdowell

Some of you might recognize me from the Hertz forum where I was the company rep on Flyertalk for the last 10 years. I recently discovered and promptly joined up with the team at CashSwap. It's like Uber for currency exchange at the airport. There is no fee and you get the real exchange rate. While at the airport, you simply note which currency you have, how much, and what currency you need. The app shows you other travelers at the airport that meet your needs. You then arrange a meetup in the airport, swap currencies and go on your way. If you watch the video on cashswapapp.com, ignore the bit about the flat $3.99 transaction fee. That's been eliminated for the foreseeable future. You can download the app now on Google Play and we'll be in the App Store shortly.

We're building the P2P network up right now and can only guarantee that we'll be on site at JFK facilitating swaps (we have a Street Team there). If enough of us sign up, though, there will be plenty of swap matches for everyone in no time.

If there are any questions or feedback, don't hesitate to post here or reach out privately. As always, my actual e-mail address is listed below.

I sincerely hope I didn't violate any posting rules here.

Mike McDowell
Vice President, Marketing
CashSwap
[email protected]

Toshbaf

I know of an American who was buying a house in Canada at the same time as a Canadian was buying a house in the US. Since they trusted each other, they looked up the interbank exchanged rate and one person deposited something like $100,000 into the others' account and vice versa.

I wish this company good luck! I tried something like this as an individual and was unsuccessful. I usually keep a supply of commonly used currencies, such as Euros, Pound Sterling, Canadian dollars, Japanese Yen, Swiss Frances but about a year ago, I was itchy to get rid of some one pound British coins that would be worthless in several months. So I checked in early at JFK then went to near the British Airways check in counters at Terminal 7 at JFK. There, I looked (and was a traveler) and had luggage and travel gear. I was there about the time UK bound travelers were checking in. I had a printed sign and stood there for an hour, offering a better than bank exchange rate (and made no mention of coins because I would offer both paper banknotes and some coins). Nobody inquired. I am sure there were Americans bound for the UK that had use for British currency.

This company's product is a little different because people think the app is reliable even though the people exchanging money are simply ordinary people.

m907

"For the foreseeable future" means "until we burn through all the venture capital cash and have to figure out a way to actually make money."

diburning

I can see why they don't have an iOS version of this app. Apple would never approve an app with such a terrible user interface. I just pulled out my Android tablet to check the app out and it's clunky and unusable. Don't waste your time, folks, the app was written by a novice.

Signup requires a mobile number. The country code is not user-enterable, but rather is a drop down that shows a flag and the country dialing prefix. It's not sorted by name of country, nor is it sorted numerically. The list refreshes and rearranges itself as I scrolled through it, and only through sheer luck was I able to find US +1. After signing up, it demanded my location. Fine, I enabled it, and then it wouldn't let me select an airport because it couldn't find an airport near me (really? BOS is 10 miles away).

After restarting the app and selecting an airport, the terminal options are 1-10 and A-Z. Sure, I guess I'll pick Terminal Q at JFK... Looks like zero thought was put into the airports list.

Next is whether I'm arriving or departing. The app has this part in plain text. I had no idea it was a drop down until the it wouldn't let me continue. Once I hit back to back out of ANY messages, error message or not, the form clears itself. What is this garbage?

I'd rather go get scammed at a Travelex than to deal with this poor excuse for an app.

mmcdowell

Thanks for the feedback, harsh as it may be. I will definitely admit that the app needs work and yes, we are working on it. A new version will be coming in the next few months. If you are willing to lose 30% of your cash because our interface is a little clunky, that's a choice that you have to make.

Here are the details on the actual ongoing iOS app situation if you're still curious.

The people behind CashSwap are not user experience experts and I certainly won't fault them for that. They are a trio that saw a need in the market and tried to fill it by offering a better way to exchange currency at the airport. My initial reaction to the CashSwap website and app was not dissimilar to yours. I actually reached out to the founders and offered to help. I was brought on as a consultant a few months back.

That said, we have discussed the airport detection feature, the terminal list, the phone number drop down, the form clearing when you hit back, etc. with the development team and these are all things being worked on. I'm happy to continue the conversation if you have additional feedback.

Until then, I really hope more Flyertalkers give the app a try. Building up a new p2p network of travelers is no easy task and the more people are in it, the more useful it will be. Thanks!

Mike
[email protected]