Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

My startup banking story (2023)

mitchellh.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 170 posts

Re: My startup banking story (2023)

#121

Post by Asraelite »

chihuahua wrote: post #91
apt-apt-apt-apt wrote: post #43

Semi-interesting, but it felt like it was leading up to something big or interesting knowledge all the way up to the end. Seems like it could have been way shorter, the plot is essentially "Deposited more and more money into a local Chase branch, made some guy named Alex a rising star. They called once in awhile, not sure why. Moving lots of money around isn't super straightforward."

Yes, I was expecting the outcome to be that the account gets frozen because it triggers some kind of anti money laundering filter.

Same. If anything, this post taught me that actually, depositing and moving around large sums of money is straightforward.

Re: My startup banking story (2023)

#122

Post by DownGoat »

mierz00 wrote: post #107
josh2600 wrote: post #70

Once upon a time my wife went to close a bank account in Italy. She went to the post office which is also a bank in Rome. She asked to closed her account. She was told that she needed to go to the branch where she opened her account in Florence. We rented a car and drove to Florence. When we arrived at the bank in Florence, the teller informed us that we would have to come back “domani” which is Italian for tomorrow…

I have a similar story in France. Closing an account with Caisse d’Epargne was nothing short of pure torture. Luckily, I didn’t actually have to go in, but the process took me nearly 6 months of back and forth, multiple phone calls, multiple hand written letters. Yes, France loves hand written letters, no you cannot type it. Every now and then I think it would be nice to return and live in France, but the thought of…

It's so easy in Norway. When you start a new relationship with another bank, they just offer to move all your money and automatic bill payments from the other bank to your new bank. So the new bank handles everything

Re: My startup banking story (2023)

#123

Post by epolanski »

dml2135 wrote: post #83
josh2600 wrote: post #70

Once upon a time my wife went to close a bank account in Italy. She went to the post office which is also a bank in Rome. She asked to closed her account. She was told that she needed to go to the branch where she opened her account in Florence. We rented a car and drove to Florence. When we arrived at the bank in Florence, the teller informed us that we would have to come back “domani” which is Italian for tomorrow…

This is everything in Italy, not just banking. I remember studying abroad there, it took us a week and a half of “domani” to get the wifi password for the dorm!

I'm Italian and both the previous story as well as your comment trigger me.

1) You could've asked the password to literally anybody in the dorm.

2) Unless this was geological ages ago, by law, all you need to close a bank account is a certified email (or PEC) or a certified letter (you go to the post office with a document and a simple form that specifies where you want your stuff transferred) you don't need to go in person anywhere at all.

Re: My startup banking story (2023)

#124

Post by toast0 »

TZubiri wrote: post #114
toast0 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a fan of Chase, and I don't think I'd bank with them again, but they are a 'large national bank'. If you value having local branches mostly where ever you go, they're part of that group. That comes with all the usual exciting attractions like negligible interest on balances, and miscellaneous fees. But if you want a large national bank, eh, I guess they're fine? My California based credit union doesn't even o…

Lots of local branches sounds great for personal banking, but for businesses? Unless you have a nation wide franchise business or a logistics business, doesn't seem as important. On the contrary, a highly concentrated bank might be better, everyone is on the same building, there are no encapsulated branches, you get assigned a banker that is the best fit, rather than the one who was born closest to you.

Depends... If you want to be able to go in and do business banking when you're visiting your parents? Might be nice. I dunno.

Re: My startup banking story (2023)

#125

Post by benhurmarcel »

mierz00 wrote: post #107
josh2600 wrote: post #70

Once upon a time my wife went to close a bank account in Italy. She went to the post office which is also a bank in Rome. She asked to closed her account. She was told that she needed to go to the branch where she opened her account in Florence. We rented a car and drove to Florence. When we arrived at the bank in Florence, the teller informed us that we would have to come back “domani” which is Italian for tomorrow…

I have a similar story in France. Closing an account with Caisse d’Epargne was nothing short of pure torture. Luckily, I didn’t actually have to go in, but the process took me nearly 6 months of back and forth, multiple phone calls, multiple hand written letters. Yes, France loves hand written letters, no you cannot type it. Every now and then I think it would be nice to return and live in France, but the thought of…

Sounds like your experience was some time ago. Banking with “traditional” banks is still slow and bureaucratic, but not to that point. And online banks let you do everything online quickly.

Re: My startup banking story (2023)

#126

Post by thrown-0825 »

mitchellh wrote: post #8

Funny to see this pop up again (I'm the author). The year is now 2025 and I still use Chase as a personal bank and I'm now discovering new funny banking behaviors. I'll use this as a chance to share. :) My company had an exit, I did well financially. This is not a secret. I'm extremely privileged and thankful for it. But as a result of this, I've used a private bank (or mix) for a number of years to store the vast ma…

why does zelle even exist?

every time i have to interact financially with americans its always focused around these random transfer apps like zelle, cash, venmo etc.

Re: My startup banking story (2023)

#127

Post by pzshaikh »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #11
mitchellh wrote: post #8

Funny to see this pop up again (I'm the author). The year is now 2025 and I still use Chase as a personal bank and I'm now discovering new funny banking behaviors. I'll use this as a chance to share. :) My company had an exit, I did well financially. This is not a secret. I'm extremely privileged and thankful for it. But as a result of this, I've used a private bank (or mix) for a number of years to store the vast ma…

I read the whole story and I'm still struggling to understand what you did wrong here. You indicated many times "I know, that was a mistake" (or similar phrases), but each time I was baffled because I saw no mistakes. It was your business, and you had every right to move around the funds within your account. What gives anyone at Chase the right to say diddly squat about how you manage your business' finances?

Most banks have dedicated startup bank account tier where you get many perks (AWS/GCloud/azure credits, transactions fees waived for the first few years, accounting software discounts, virtual credit cards) so it's a good idea to open that account instead of a standard business account plus he had $35m just sitting there in a checking account if he has opened an account with a bank that is more experienced in dealing with this type of businesses their RM would have suggested to keep certain amount in the business account and create another saving account where most of the money would have earned interest or invested in some fund. So I think maybe he is implying that due to these mistakes he missed out on personalized guidance.

Re: My startup banking story (2023)

#128

Post by thrown-0825 »

astrange wrote: post #79
bdcravens wrote: post #16

During COVID, I took a major haircut in my day job, and ended up doing a lot of side work to stay solvent. All my banking was with Chase; I setup a new checking account for my side work. One day they just took about $900. No matter who I spoke to, they bounced me around and never gave me an answer why. I can only guess there was a fraud trigger or something, but to this day, I've never gotten the money back or even g…

File a CFPB complaint. Or email executive/investor relations.

I see you are operating under the idea that the US still has consumer protections and isnt a gutted husk of what it once was.

Re: My startup banking story (2023)

#129

Post by jcattle »

thrown-0825 wrote: post #126
mitchellh wrote: post #8

Funny to see this pop up again (I'm the author). The year is now 2025 and I still use Chase as a personal bank and I'm now discovering new funny banking behaviors. I'll use this as a chance to share. :) My company had an exit, I did well financially. This is not a secret. I'm extremely privileged and thankful for it. But as a result of this, I've used a private bank (or mix) for a number of years to store the vast ma…

why does zelle even exist? every time i have to interact financially with americans its always focused around these random transfer apps like zelle, cash, venmo etc.

The US tends not to regulate what kind of services a bank has to offer to its customers. A bank doesn't need to offer any kind of transfer services to be a bank. As far as I know you can legally be a bank and only offer cash deposit and withdrawal.

The EU has PSD (Payment Services Directive) and PSD2 which stipulate what kind of transfers have to be possible to customers.

Because of that the US just has a bunch of startups which offer services that unify the payment landscape. The alternatives at a bunch of banks is still that you need to write checks.

Re: My startup banking story (2023)

#130

Post by decimalenough »

merek wrote: post #101

> I never told them what my business does or what I'd use the money for. This stuck out to me. I'm in the process of opening a bank account in Singapore for a newly registered company, and boy is it difficult. Hour-long KYC interview. Details of what the business does. Anything remotely controversial could be a red flag. They want to hear about boring B2B services. They want to see evidence of customer communications…

Are you Singaporean? I found opening my business account (UOB) extremely straightforward.
Post reply on HN