Is this like Vodeno in europe? When looking at job listings, I realized that Aion Bank appears to be just a marketing wrapper around Vodeno, which handles all the administration, technical stuff and even banking license and customer support.
Increase: Banking API
11–20 of 305 posts
Re: Increase: Banking API
#12It sounds cool, but I don't fully understand: is this a fully-fledged US bank (with a banking license, FDIC insurance, audited,...) that allows you to do all banking transactions through an API, or is this a framework that you can use if you are already a bank to expose all your transactions through an API, or something else?
Re: Increase: Banking API
#13from TOS [0]:
Increase is not a chartered depository institution. We work with our partner banks to provide depository and payment services. When you open an Increase account, you agree to the Increase Terms of Service below. When you use the Increase service to set up a deposit account, the account is with First Internet Bank or Blue Ridge Bank and is subject to your agreement with the Bank Terms below. Finally, Increase's use of your personal information is described in the Privacy Policy below.
Re: Increase: Banking API
#14I'm a bit confused about why one would want to do this! If you become your own bank, what are the pieces you have to do yourself? (I imagine things like fraud?)
You're not actually becoming a bank. They are just providing an API so you can act like a bank. Your money is still going to be held by an actual bank. The banking services are still being provided by an actual bank.
Yeah, accounts are with First Internet Bank or Blue Ridge Bank:
Re: Increase: Banking API
#15is this like Column?
https://column.com/
For those that don’t know what Column is.
Re: Increase: Banking API
#16Doesn't look like they provide an API for any sort of brokerage services. I have written a lot of sqlite to track my progress with buying/selling stock options but the biggest pain point for me is transcribing my transactions into my sqlite database. If they expand their API to brokerage services then this could be a killer feature for me.
Re: Increase: Banking API
#17Seems like bbaas, banking backend as a service, solves a significant need in the world, considering existing alternatives. For example in Europe there’s Mambu that seems to do something similar.
Not sure what the exact customer pain is here, could be that banks were the first to adopt IT and now have a large legacy where there is little value in rebuilding it with modern stacks, as it offers little competitive differentiation.
Or maybe there’s a need to quickly bring new banking products to market, and the backend stuff is so standardized that it’s best to buy it off the shelve.
Re: Increase: Banking API
#18is this like Column?
It appears to be virtually the same service as Column, but they lack their own bank.
Re: Increase: Banking API
#19Thanks @op! Increase employee here:
We're early days and not quite ready for open sign-ups yet (sorry, known bug). We'll be more public over the coming weeks and months.
We're banking for developers; you can programatically create accounts, cards, and move money.
Our users are primarily financial technology companies.
We're a small team from Stripe, Robinhood, and Visa building the bank we always wanted. If this sounds interesting to you we're hiring: jobs@increase.com
If I can be helpful, I'm at darragh@increase.com.
Re: Increase: Banking API
#20It sounds cool, but I don't fully understand: is this a fully-fledged US bank (with a banking license, FDIC insurance, audited,...) that allows you to do all banking transactions through an API, or is this a framework that you can use if you are already a bank to expose all your transactions through an API, or something else?
I think they provide a backend so you can issue your own cards, with bank accounts routable through normal banking systems. Payoneer famously rely on third party "back-end" banks for their services, as they issue cards, offer routable bank accounts, cash withdrawal, etc.
This is an extremely niche use case of course, but it's not the first time they popped up on HN at least.
In mobile ISPs, MVNOs are quite common, and there is a large amount of customer base because they simplify KYC, sales, and customer on-boarding. Technically, this API should provide the platform to build a similar "Virtual bank". I do not think anybody without a significant technical and financial resources will be able to pull it off.
Another use case I can think of are market places like ebay, Amazon, Aliexpress, etc. Each seller receive a bank account that they get their payments deposited to, and can be withdrawn from their branded card. I do not see this being a commercially viable option for many, because pretty much every country has free or almost free systems in place to simply transfer money, and not take the unnecessary burden of issue cards, maintaining bank accounts, etc. Payoneer used to run a similar program, with branded cards, custom fee structures, etc, but it eventually failed as far as I know.