Would love HSBC support :)
Truelayer has HSBC UK support
Teller – API for your bank account
241–250 of 282 posts
Re: Teller – API for your bank account
#242Superb. Any chance of supporting Lloyds?
Truelayer, a uk competitor, already support Lloyds
Re: Teller – API for your bank account
#243Can someone explain to me this dichotomy I see with the almost thermo-nuclear war when it comes to copyright protection of total drivel, but when it comes to fin-tech there is literally a flourishing industry of screen scraping typing companies and well-publicized plays like Mint and it's just like a big shrug? How are these companies able to mitigate through the banking companies TOU and such?
> How are these companies able to mitigate through the banking companies TOU and such?
That's the trick, they just put all the liability on the user for security issues. Most banks say you must never give your credentials to a third party
So these startups and fin-tech companies just slap a few clauses in their T&Cs to say it's the users problem, not theirs.
Re: Teller – API for your bank account
#244Early on at Token, we looked Teller as a possible solution to getting to market quickly. We found two things: 1) the lawyers told us to stay clear (huge greyzone) and 2) the banks themselves didn't want to engage with us using teller even if it sped up development time. We even brought stevie in talk to our lawyers to make his case. He failed to convince them. Finally, we inquired about the price. Stevie was elusive on pricing. I finally asked, "Look, if we paid you $1M, how many banks could we get?" He said one. So at that point, we were so far apart on all issues, so we pulled out. Token will be doing something similar to teller in terms of "one API for all banks" (aggregating banks' PSD2 interface with Token acting as a PISP/AISP). But we are also providing the PSD2 interface for other banks. We have raised plenty of money to do it right ($18.5M Series A to start with), but our pricing to developers will be ridiculously inexpensive. Also, we need to hire developers very quickly, so if you are interested in helping us do it right (no shared secrets, all end-to-end secure protocols, secure central PII storage (where the decryption keys are only available at endpoints), please let us know. We don't have a lot of time left to do this right. We are located in London and San Francisco.
Re: Teller – API for your bank account
#245Is there a test / mock instance, allowing you to call services connecting to dummy bank accounts? i.e. Some people may be concerned about trying out the API on their own accounts during the early stages, or if any update services are added in future. Also it enables those not banking with a supported bank to develop against the service.
Re: Teller – API for your bank account
#246Earlier quoted context omitted.
First I've heard about Plaid and Quovo. These services seem to be targeted at a developer interested in developing products for others. I really wish someone would come out with an API service targeted towards someone who would like to manage and query their portfolio of accounts with code. I have tried time and time again to use things like Mint or Quicken to have a consolidated view of my accounts, but invariably I…
I use Plaid for my own bank account access, which I used to replace my own OFX code because my banks kept randomly breaking their OFX interfaces. Plaid was fine with creating a developer account for just a few bank accounts, they didn't have any minimum or anything.
Thanks. I'll give it a shot. Any useful scripts you'd care to share?
One thing I ran into quickly when parsing my own bank's OFX was the truncation of the payee field, which made it extremely difficult to identify certain transactions. For example, I might get coffee at a Starbucks, but it would show up in the bank export as "STORE93423 CA LA STAR". I never determined if this was a limitation of the bank's software or simply that OFX didn't allow for enough characters. It'll be interesting to see if Plaid solves this.
Re: Teller – API for your bank account
#247Teller is already an established brand name in the payment industry in Norway (Scandinavia?). https://www.nets.eu/en/payments/
Re: Teller – API for your bank account
#248Early on at Token, we looked Teller as a possible solution to getting to market quickly. We found two things: 1) the lawyers told us to stay clear (huge greyzone) and 2) the banks themselves didn't want to engage with us using teller even if it sped up development time. We even brought stevie in talk to our lawyers to make his case. He failed to convince them. Finally, we inquired about the price. Stevie was elusive…
Do you know what reasons the lawyers gave for steering clear? i.e. The arguments for your scenario as a potential competitor may not apply to other potential users. Also some lawyers just give "steer clear" as default advise, since that way they themselves are in the clear / there's no benefit to them to tell you to go for it, so the incentive is for them to be overly cautious.
Re: Teller – API for your bank account
#249Early on at Token, we looked Teller as a possible solution to getting to market quickly. We found two things: 1) the lawyers told us to stay clear (huge greyzone) and 2) the banks themselves didn't want to engage with us using teller even if it sped up development time. We even brought stevie in talk to our lawyers to make his case. He failed to convince them. Finally, we inquired about the price. Stevie was elusive…
Steve,
I'm really surprised.
> the lawyers told us to stay clear (huge greyzone)
I remember going in to speak with your lawyers, convincing them, you emailing me the same day telling me as much and still wanting to do a deal.
> Stevie was elusive on pricing. I finally asked, "Look, if we paid you $1M, how many banks could we get?" He said one.
If you then thought I was going to give you, a competitor, my core IP for 1 million dollars a year, while you used it with your series A money to capture the market, well then you must be out of your damn mind.
> the banks themselves didn't want to engage with us using teller even if it sped up development time
Banks don't want to engage with you period. Nobody has heard of Token, you have zero technology and zero bank integrations.
Best of luck with it all, Steve.
Re: Teller – API for your bank account
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are they required to adhere to a standardized API? If not, then I think there's still some utility in a service that can normalize that stuff and provide you with a single, consistent interface.
Nope. They just need to provide "an API". Got a hundred banks? That's potentially 100 integrations you'll need to do - the barriers remain in place an everyone is happy.
On the positive side, someone could provide a library which covers these but doesn't require going through a third party. i.e. that library could provide a "single api" with none of the risks of picking an unknown third party. If that were done as an OSS offering you'd also be able to easily confirm there was nothing lurking in the library under the covers.