Live data from Hacker News

Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

root.co.za

51–60 of 427 posts

Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#51
post #11

What problem does this attempt to solve? Their slack example doesn't seem particularly pressing.

If only every bank would provide a real time feed of every transaction, pretty much everything could be written as a third party software (except denying transactions, but if you use a credit card that's a non issue)

Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#52
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

N26 has got a quite decent REST API if you are willing to use your dev tools for a bit :) Edit: Most banks also seem to support FinTS [0], but it seems a bit of a PITA. Edit 2: figo might be worth a try as well, though I don't know their pricing. Edit 3: bunq is quite nice as well. I implemented a few basic calls in node when they launched the API. Not the easiest API to work with, but acceptable. [0]: https://www.hb…

Every time I see anything about N26, I am quite disappointed that it isn't available in the US.

It is quite good, but it's not perfect. The apps look non-native and the UI has many issues (e.g. entering 10 international characters quickly in the "transfer note" box pops up 10 "only latin characters" notifications), the login UI looks weird on Firefox, and http://my.n26.com/ causes an infinite loop that I reported weeks ago.

Other than that, I'm very satisfied with the service, and I use them as my bank bank, but I use Revolut (revolut.com) for my everyday transactions, just because it "feels" nicer. The transparent N26 card definitely turns heads, though, cashiers are always asking me about that.

Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would that work in real life? Uber doesn't charge you before your ride is complete, and at that point your payment would bounce, and now you're in trouble. Well in the Uber example you're allowing payments to Uber, not denying them. But you do have a very good point about denying pay-after-use type transactions, I'm not really sure what they're doing about that.

Wasn't their example all about limiting the number of rides you can take? So at that point, you'd eventually be denying them, as I understand it.

> Uber card: Let’s say you give your daughter R500 pocket money each month, but you’re worried she might run out of money and be unable to afford an Uber home. So you write a little code and give her a Root card that a) gives her a limit of R500 per month, and b) lets her take as many Uber rides as she needs (enabling her to spend beyond the R500, but only for Uber)

That's the one I was thinking of, note the "lets her take as many Uber rides as she needs".

Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#56

Hi All, If you are interested in talking to the devs they can be found in #root on zatech slack group For invites check https://zatech.github.io/site/ disclaimer: Not a root dev just a user on the zatech slack group

Thanks bongonewhere :) I'm also on here to answer some Q's

Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#59
post #11

What problem does this attempt to solve? Their slack example doesn't seem particularly pressing.

Useful new technologies don't always solve obvious problems. Sometimes a more fruitful way of thinking about them is to ask: what might this help enable? And especially considering this not just in terms of an isolated individual using it, but in terms of if it had broad uptake where lots of people were using it.

Think of things like the introduction of cars, or the internet. Their actual effect on most people weren't a matter of obvious problems they had at the time.

Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#60
post #32
post #9

I'd like to have something like this for Germany. I am willing to pay 10€/month for a simple API access to my bank account. I need neither hosted code nor push. Just give me remote access for my scripts. Probably I'm asking for the impossible because of the heavy regulation in Germany but just wanted to put it out there.

AFAIK the best way to access German bank accounts programmatically is AqBanking, which is used by e.g. GNUCash. It also comes with a CLI: https://www.aquamaniac.de/sites/aqbanking/cli.php

Sieht gut aus! I'll give it a try, thank you.
Post reply on HN