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Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

root.co.za

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Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#181

Post by run4yourlives2 »

s_dev wrote: post #45

People asking about what problem this solves haven't been to South Africa or Zimbabwe which in some ways are ahead of the West in creating cashless societies. The biggest bank is a phone operator and people can send each other money over the phone and from what I understand this is very common. Also interestingly most phones aren't smart phones. It's mostly analog. Banks have a serious incentive to create and encoura…

"ahead of the West"

Ahem, ahead of the US, really. Canada and the EU can be cashless already, with chip cards and direct bank withdrawal at the POS a reality for 99.99% of merchants.

Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#182

Post by spookyuser »

louwhopley wrote: post #54

Founder here :) Feel free to ask me any questions

Random question but it really bugs me that FNB and I think most other South African banks still use SMS/Email based secondary authentication OTPs. Are you guys planning on using TOTP by any chance?

Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#183

Post by h43z »

egeozcan wrote: 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.

I have written my own script which makes use of AqBanking-CLI. Postbank does support HBCI.

Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#184

Post by RickS »

louwhopley wrote: post #101
RickS wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey - I previously worked on a prepaid debit platform that worked slightly farther from the metal here (post-processor). I'm interested in two pieces of data we couldn't get there, but that I had really high hopes for. 1) Dynamic merchant-type filtering before auth. For example, if tom has spent 50$ on food this month, all merchants that identify as "food" will fail auth on further transaction attempts. I'm not sure…

Hey RickS, they are still called MCCs :) (2) is a bit more tricky to get our hands on, at least in South Africa

Cool - is MCC identifiable as part of the auth process, in the way my parent comment describes (conditional auth based on MCC)

Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#185

Post by louwhopley »

matdehaast wrote: post #177

Hey, @louwhopley. So cool to see this project on HN! Signed up for your early access a few weeks ago and hope to get access soon. I think there is a lot of opportunities still within Africa for the informal sector with technology. However, the FICA guidelines make it quite difficult to operate in this space. Do you see a future where we can service this sector better whilst still be compliant?

That's part of our mission :)

Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#186

Post by Tharkun »

KirinDave wrote: post #114

This is the sort of thing American banks just can't do at scale. Which is probably a good thing, to be honest.

Not entirely sure why you were downvoted. American banks are pretty horrible from a technology point of view. I've dealt with a couple of US banks, and they're still very much stuck in the "paper cheque"-era, with no desire to do anything about it.

Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#187

Post by Ianvdl »

spookyuser wrote: post #182
louwhopley wrote: post #54

Founder here :) Feel free to ask me any questions

Random question but it really bugs me that FNB and I think most other South African banks still use SMS/Email based secondary authentication OTPs. Are you guys planning on using TOTP by any chance?

Just FYI: Capitec uses their mobile app for that (or you can also get a keychain with an authenticator).
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