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Ask HN: Sick of your bank? Want to build a open source, non-profit, online bank?

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Re: Ask HN: Sick of your bank? Want to build a open source, non-profit, online bank?

#61

Post by notahacker »

niallpaterson wrote: post #22
antocv wrote: post #17

Perhaps its the legislation or financial overseer institutions that make banking pure hell? Banks are required to for example know their customers before giving them accounts, and can be held responsible for money or shady laundering. Im all for the idea anyway but lets talk real, how would it work? It has to be for profit else its not a business but a welfare whixh the banks will go to for bailouts next. Owned by al…

See how simple do it in the US? They've a partner bank, which handles that side of things. I'd be optimistic the same could work.

But then it isn't really "non-profit", it's "doing work for a big shady corporation without making any margin on it"...

Re: Ask HN: Sick of your bank? Want to build a open source, non-profit, online bank?

#62

Post by niallpaterson »

notahacker wrote: post #59
niallpaterson wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's an example: Imagine if your bank account had a profile, almost like a social network, and you could go to someone else's profile and quickly see recent transactions you've had with them. I'm not thinking of something like a credit union, rather something quite different, and I really feel there's lots more that can be done with banking from a tech pov

How revolutionary is that, exactly? Any decent online banking service should allow you to see your payment history and filter it by the entity you paid, even if you have to export to csv to run the filters. Of course many people would value a a pretty UI layer on top of that with categories, notes and charts and graphs that offer much more interesting graphical indications of which people and companies take up the hi…

I think it'd be the experience of that rather than the actual feature. Like how many non technical people are going to straight out of the box know what export to csv is then be able to run filters on it? People are much more familiar with my proposed way. It's note just the UI, it's the way it's done. Paraphrasing Steve Jobs, the design isn't the UI, it's the way it works.

Mint is great, but it's very much read only. A read and write setup, if you get the anaology, would surely be much more powerful.

Re: Ask HN: Sick of your bank? Want to build a open source, non-profit, online bank?

#63

Post by niallpaterson »

notahacker wrote: post #61
niallpaterson wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See how simple do it in the US? They've a partner bank, which handles that side of things. I'd be optimistic the same could work.

But then it isn't really "non-profit", it's "doing work for a big shady corporation without making any margin on it"...

I think it's unavoidable to have a partner bank (at least for now) but considering they wouldn't get as much, that would surely be better? I completely get what you mean, and agree in many ways, but is there any other way?

Re: Ask HN: Sick of your bank? Want to build a open source, non-profit, online bank?

#64

Post by niallpaterson »

jasdeepsingh wrote: post #57
niallpaterson wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think 99% of people aren't going to bank with an unregulated, fluctuating currency that they don't understand or control.

..99% of people aren't going to bank with.. People won't "bank" when it comes to Bitcoin - There's no need of a Banking system really. And as per your concern around fluctuating value of Bitcoins, It's just a matter of how you look at it and standardization. Assuming everyone tomorrow agrees to standardize that Bitcoin is the de-facto currency and decides to transact in BTC only, I don't think anyone will be concerne…

Consider John Doe. John is an ordinary internet user who's heard of bitcoin, but has no iota of how it works and 0 control over it. Will John trust his life savings with it? No. I think that's pretty obvious.

Let's face it 'Assuming everyone tomorrow agrees to standardize that Bitcoin is the de-facto currency and decides to transact in BTC only' is a crazy assumption right now.

Re: Ask HN: Sick of your bank? Want to build a open source, non-profit, online bank?

#65

Post by dragonwriter »

jasdeepsingh wrote: post #57
niallpaterson wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think 99% of people aren't going to bank with an unregulated, fluctuating currency that they don't understand or control.

..99% of people aren't going to bank with.. People won't "bank" when it comes to Bitcoin - There's no need of a Banking system really. And as per your concern around fluctuating value of Bitcoins, It's just a matter of how you look at it and standardization. Assuming everyone tomorrow agrees to standardize that Bitcoin is the de-facto currency and decides to transact in BTC only, I don't think anyone will be concerne…

> People won't "bank" when it comes to Bitcoin - There's no need of a Banking system really.

Banking is about borrowing and lending. The idea that using bitcoin eliminates the need to borrow and lend money is something that could use support.

Re: Ask HN: Sick of your bank? Want to build a open source, non-profit, online bank?

#66

Post by JazCE »

niallpaterson wrote: post #64
jasdeepsingh wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

..99% of people aren't going to bank with.. People won't "bank" when it comes to Bitcoin - There's no need of a Banking system really. And as per your concern around fluctuating value of Bitcoins, It's just a matter of how you look at it and standardization. Assuming everyone tomorrow agrees to standardize that Bitcoin is the de-facto currency and decides to transact in BTC only, I don't think anyone will be concerne…

Consider John Doe. John is an ordinary internet user who's heard of bitcoin, but has no iota of how it works and 0 control over it. Will John trust his life savings with it? No. I think that's pretty obvious. Let's face it 'Assuming everyone tomorrow agrees to standardize that Bitcoin is the de-facto currency and decides to transact in BTC only' is a crazy assumption right now.

>Consider John Doe. John is an ordinary internet user who's heard of bitcoin, but has no iota of how it works and 0 control over it. Will John trust his life savings with it? No. I think that's pretty obvious.

err consider John Doe... He doesn't give a damn if his bank is open source or not. John Doe is not your target, people who use BitCoins (and I don't mean lemonade selling girl scouts) are your target.

Re: Ask HN: Sick of your bank? Want to build a open source, non-profit, online bank?

#67

Post by jasdeepsingh »

niallpaterson wrote: post #64
jasdeepsingh wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

..99% of people aren't going to bank with.. People won't "bank" when it comes to Bitcoin - There's no need of a Banking system really. And as per your concern around fluctuating value of Bitcoins, It's just a matter of how you look at it and standardization. Assuming everyone tomorrow agrees to standardize that Bitcoin is the de-facto currency and decides to transact in BTC only, I don't think anyone will be concerne…

Consider John Doe. John is an ordinary internet user who's heard of bitcoin, but has no iota of how it works and 0 control over it. Will John trust his life savings with it? No. I think that's pretty obvious. Let's face it 'Assuming everyone tomorrow agrees to standardize that Bitcoin is the de-facto currency and decides to transact in BTC only' is a crazy assumption right now.

I'm not suggesting anyone to bet their life savings with Bitcoin today. The dream is still decades away, may be years.. My assumption might be a crazy one right now, but remember revolutionary ideas always sound crazy at first.

Electricity, Air travel, Internet? Don't you think these were crazy ideas some day?

With Bitcoin ATM's opening up in Toronto where I live, I see things moving fast than even myself expected. Sure, there will be resistance but it's hard to suppress something as revolutionary & crazy as Crypto currencies.

Re: Ask HN: Sick of your bank? Want to build a open source, non-profit, online bank?

#68

Post by jasdeepsingh »

niallpaterson wrote: post #64
jasdeepsingh wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

..99% of people aren't going to bank with.. People won't "bank" when it comes to Bitcoin - There's no need of a Banking system really. And as per your concern around fluctuating value of Bitcoins, It's just a matter of how you look at it and standardization. Assuming everyone tomorrow agrees to standardize that Bitcoin is the de-facto currency and decides to transact in BTC only, I don't think anyone will be concerne…

Consider John Doe. John is an ordinary internet user who's heard of bitcoin, but has no iota of how it works and 0 control over it. Will John trust his life savings with it? No. I think that's pretty obvious. Let's face it 'Assuming everyone tomorrow agrees to standardize that Bitcoin is the de-facto currency and decides to transact in BTC only' is a crazy assumption right now.

The same conclusion can be drawn for your Open source bank?

Assume the same John Doe :), ordinary internet user, Never heard of XYZ Open source bank, No idea how it works, 0 control over it. Will John trust his life savings with this Open Source bank?

I'm not trying to de-motivate you or diss you, infact I encourage everything Open Source! It's just that I'm attempting to outline that something out there already exists which solves may be atleast some of the problems you want to solve. Good luck!

Re: Ask HN: Sick of your bank? Want to build a open source, non-profit, online bank?

#69

Post by jasdeepsingh »

dragonwriter wrote: post #65
jasdeepsingh wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

..99% of people aren't going to bank with.. People won't "bank" when it comes to Bitcoin - There's no need of a Banking system really. And as per your concern around fluctuating value of Bitcoins, It's just a matter of how you look at it and standardization. Assuming everyone tomorrow agrees to standardize that Bitcoin is the de-facto currency and decides to transact in BTC only, I don't think anyone will be concerne…

> People won't "bank" when it comes to Bitcoin - There's no need of a Banking system really. Banking is about borrowing and lending. The idea that using bitcoin eliminates the need to borrow and lend money is something that could use support.

The whole point of de-centralizing a financial system is to move away from a central source for lending & borrowing. With Crypto currencies, it would be easier than ever for you to lend/borrow money to/from your friends/colleagues/investors etc.

The idea & support for transactions like borrowing, lending, escrow and likely all other transaction types that you can think of are already built into Bitcoin & it's design. They are just not being used as of today.

Infact, I would say it's safer to carry out such transactions using Crypto currencies than with a Bank. Please see this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD4L7xDNCmA

Satoshi was clever enough to think of all use-cases and he made sure that the design & eco-system would be solid enough to replace centuries old incumbents like Banks. The features are just sitting and hiding there in the protocol to be made use of when there is enough traction & momentum.

Re: Ask HN: Sick of your bank? Want to build a open source, non-profit, online bank?

#70

Post by jasdeepsingh »

dragonwriter wrote: post #65
jasdeepsingh wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

..99% of people aren't going to bank with.. People won't "bank" when it comes to Bitcoin - There's no need of a Banking system really. And as per your concern around fluctuating value of Bitcoins, It's just a matter of how you look at it and standardization. Assuming everyone tomorrow agrees to standardize that Bitcoin is the de-facto currency and decides to transact in BTC only, I don't think anyone will be concerne…

> People won't "bank" when it comes to Bitcoin - There's no need of a Banking system really. Banking is about borrowing and lending. The idea that using bitcoin eliminates the need to borrow and lend money is something that could use support.

You might also want to have a look at this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJljgM6TSu8
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