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Root partners with Standard Bank South Africa to offer programmable bank account

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Re: Root partners with Standard Bank South Africa to offer programmable bank account

#31

Post by nouney »

louwhopley wrote: post #26
sgt wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm with ABSA and FnB. Will it initially be only for Standard Bank customers or will you support other banks?

Hi sgt, Root will be available to all developers in South Africa, not locked to SB clients :)

And for the rest of the world? I always wanted such a kind of service, can't wait to use it.

Re: Root partners with Standard Bank South Africa to offer programmable bank account

#33

Post by sjtgraham »

kodfodrasz wrote: post #2

This is very exciting. In the EU the fintech revolution is also banging the gates, as in 2018 all banks must support a standard protocol, if I recall correctly.

My company Teller, https://teller.io/ has transactional banking APIs with the UK banks in production today. It'll be coming out of beta soon and I'll do a Show HN at the time but feel free to shoot me any questions at sg@teller.io (don't want hijack Root's thread, awesome work folks!)

Re: Root partners with Standard Bank South Africa to offer programmable bank account

#34

Post by jawns »

malanj wrote: post #5

Founder here - let me know if you have any questions! More details at https://root.co.za/

Are there any mechanisms in place to prevent developers from shooting themselves in the foot, e.g. unintentionally allowing access to their sensitive financial information or transferring money to someone because there's a bug in their code?

Re: Root partners with Standard Bank South Africa to offer programmable bank account

#35

Post by m23khan »

malanj wrote: post #5

Founder here - let me know if you have any questions! More details at https://root.co.za/

Hi malanj,

Can you point on some use cases this may serve? Is the intention to allow mobile app developers to create e-wallet type apps. for the bank account? Or perhaps hook it up to e-assisstant such as Alexa?

Re: Root partners with Standard Bank South Africa to offer programmable bank account

#36

Post by axisK »

m23khan wrote: post #35
malanj wrote: post #5

Founder here - let me know if you have any questions! More details at https://root.co.za/

Hi malanj, Can you point on some use cases this may serve? Is the intention to allow mobile app developers to create e-wallet type apps. for the bank account? Or perhaps hook it up to e-assisstant such as Alexa?

The first thing I thought of when seeing this was giving a card to each team member which allows for small purchases at specific partnered businesses - e.g. expensing lunch outings without most of the paperwork.

Re: Root partners with Standard Bank South Africa to offer programmable bank account

#37

Post by markatkinson »

malanj wrote: post #11
EtienneK wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fellow South African here. How do I get in on the closed beta?

You can sign up to the waiting list at https://root.co.za/ We'll be sending more details to people on that list soon.

As a fintech developer super keen to get involved in this, and finally an excuse to learn Javascript. Fingers crossed.

Re: Root partners with Standard Bank South Africa to offer programmable bank account

#38

Post by Slackwise »

I would love something like this for personal use, so I can share my bank account with my family and control their spending and behavior.

I mean, assuming you can give out cards linked to said account, to discern who is using the account. That'd be incredibly useful. I used Google Wallet for this previously, and now use Simple, but it'd be nice to not have to approve requests and instead implement some logic to do so.

If anyone working for Simple sees this: get on this! I'd move from my main bank account to entirely Simple just for this functionality.

Re: Root partners with Standard Bank South Africa to offer programmable bank account

#39

Post by malanj »

Slackwise wrote: post #38

I would love something like this for personal use, so I can share my bank account with my family and control their spending and behavior. I mean, assuming you can give out cards linked to said account, to discern who is using the account. That'd be incredibly useful. I used Google Wallet for this previously, and now use Simple, but it'd be nice to not have to approve requests and instead implement some logic to do so…

That'll actually be one of the key use-cases for Root I think.

E.g. We've had people who want a card for their spouse, and then whenever one of them spends money, it alerts the other one so that they can sync budgets.

Re: Root partners with Standard Bank South Africa to offer programmable bank account

#40

Post by malanj »

jawns wrote: post #34
malanj wrote: post #5

Founder here - let me know if you have any questions! More details at https://root.co.za/

Are there any mechanisms in place to prevent developers from shooting themselves in the foot, e.g. unintentionally allowing access to their sensitive financial information or transferring money to someone because there's a bug in their code?

There are two ways we're dealing with that at the moment. 1) A sandbox mode to test code on, that simulates transactions without moving real money 2) The idea of "pockets", so you can attach code to a specific ring-fenced pool of money
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