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Column – a chartered bank for developers

column.com

291–299 of 299 posts

Re: Column – a chartered bank for developers

#291
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah Crypto especially USDC is really not worth the risk.

What risk?

Its not really backed by fiat as they advertise. Like everything in Crypto, nothing is what it seems to be. It's an ever shifting definition.

Re: Column – a chartered bank for developers

#292

If a developer writes a product that others use, I wonder what type of legal fine print we need to include? For example, if I start my own micro-credit card using this service, I may have my own legal t&a, but I wonder if I need to include Column's as well?

But the t&c is between you and column, not your customer.

If you comply with columns' t&c, your customers should be none the wiser.

I don't expect a SAAS app I pay for to show me the t&c of AWS and expect me to also comply with it.

Re: Column – a chartered bank for developers

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have you ever heard how you could pay off your mortgage a lot quicker by making bi-weekly payments instead of monthly? Or how you can include extra with your payment and instruct your bank to apply it directly to the premium, helping you reduce your interest? Generally speaking you don't want to do that. A mortgage with an interest rate of like 3% (to which anyone in the last year refinanced or, or got on purchase…

This is a form of leverage, but how do you use it in a low-risk way? Fixed income investments seem to be near zero, and maybe people don’t want to invest more in stock. If the alternative is cash sitting in a bank account, paying off the loan looks better. Edit: I looked at Series I, and it's variable rate with a 3-month interest penalty for early withdrawal, so you're not going to get 7% in the end. It seems worth d…

You get a 9.5% at the moment if you buy before April 30 and hold for about a year.

Re: Column – a chartered bank for developers

#294
post #8

Hey founder (and OP) here. This has been a labor of love for the past few years and I'm super stoked on what we shipped. Would love any and all feedback, thoughts and questions!

What core banking engine do you use?

The one they built, apparently.

Re: Column – a chartered bank for developers

#295
post #226
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think many starts ups are "rich people" self funding (or are parental funded). For instance Microsoft and Bill Gate's and Paul Allen's helped them out a lot. Ditto with Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk's Tesla & Space X, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway. You'll notice everyone aforementioned attended an Ivy League university.

Elon Musk did not found Tesla. He joined later after making an investment. Founded in July 2003 by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning as Tesla Motors, the company's name is a tribute to inventor and electrical engineer Nikola Tesla. In February 2004, via a $6.5 million investment, X.com co-founder Elon Musk became the largest shareholder of the company and its chairman. He has served as CEO since 2008. [0] [0] https…

That seems like a very pedantic distinction. Large scale investment and a leadership position within the first 9 month of company creation seems like a “founder” to me.

Re: Column – a chartered bank for developers

#296
post #8

Hey founder (and OP) here. This has been a labor of love for the past few years and I'm super stoked on what we shipped. Would love any and all feedback, thoughts and questions!

Fintech dev here.

The product looks incredibly good. What I absolutely love the most is the fact the web site immediately addresses people with a human language at the left and plain code at the right. No marketingspeak. Love it.

However the title is a bit misleading. It says "a chartered bank for developers" while the correct title would be "a chartered bank for U.S. developers". I feel like in the IT community we see deeper diversity of nations and citizenships compared to the other industries, so much more people from the rest of the world.

To make sure I had to dug into the documentation. Indeed, US-specific properties are marked as required in the person creation API call[1]. So Column is a non-starter for anyone outside the `default_country`. It would be nice to mention this somewhere on the site perhaps to set proper expectations.

[1] https://column.com/docs/api/#entity/create-person

Re: Column – a chartered bank for developers

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a little confused about who your customers are. Do I have this right? - Competent to develop and manage AML, KYC programs - Wants to handle underwriting, fraud, compliance & operational risk exposure - Develops software - Doesn't want to talk to ACH & VISA - Operates only in the US Who is that?

This seems to be the US equivalent to Solarisbank, which operates only in some EU countries. I don't know any specifics, but I have encountered Solaris a few times. For example they are used by TradeRepublic, basically the German Robinhood equivalent, and a handful of Neobank providers. Those Neobanks usually focus onto a specific niche and build their product based on the services offered by Solaris. I would imagine…

This is the equivalent to Cross River Bank which is US based, FDIC insured, and built its own core bank system.

Re: Column – a chartered bank for developers

#298
post #164

There’s something about this that smells like “anyone can now operate a bank without a charter or being subjected to regulatory oversight” that’s maximally distressing and I think it’s incumbent upon the founders to clarify their intent. A proliferation of loosely regulated banking entities was the basis for an economic disaster over a century ago in the US when fractional reserve logic had yet to be formalized. I’m…

OR There is a large prospective customer base and all assets/liabilities of these customers are reflected on Column's balance sheet and subject to the same oversight by the OCC and FDIC as any other community or national bank (of its size).

Re: Column – a chartered bank for developers

#299
post #8

Hey founder (and OP) here. This has been a labor of love for the past few years and I'm super stoked on what we shipped. Would love any and all feedback, thoughts and questions!

I'm excited about this because it may help with a problem I've had for many years: in a word, being my family's CFO. I'm a data scientist, and I'd like to be able to report as easily on my own personal finances as I can on the data of the company I work for. This is not a small thing for me. I want to take care of my family's finances, but I'm impatient with bullshit. I don't want to spend an hour every weekend loggi…

Hey there, you will be able to do all of this with our Klutch credit card. Full disclaimer I am the cofounder. But what we built is exactly what you are describing. Here is a link to our documentation- https://dev.klutchcard.com/docs
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