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Mercury – Banking built for startups

mercury.co

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Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#111

Post by runako »

So far, I'm intrigued. But I'm also conservative when it comes to money. None of these questions are specific to Mercury, they are general to any of the fintech startups that have been popping up lately. So:

- do people really use new banks like this?

- how worried is it reasonable to be that bugs in the platform will cause interruption of business/money loss for customers? (I'd be particularly worried that I wouldn't immediately catch an error in the bank's favor.)

- in general, is there ever a compelling reason to not wait a few years for the bank to smooth out its operations before getting on board?

All that said, I love to see innovation in the space and it looks like a refreshing start!

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#112

Post by dumbfoundded »

immad wrote: post #82
serf wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hemp isn't marijuana (referring to psychoactive cannabis strains), by design. (and less importantly (imo), marijuana is a slang term born from racist origins.[0][1]) I think that you mean 'cannabis related'. Sorry if there is a perceived pedantry on my part; I just think that the distinction is important both conceptually and legislatively, especially given that other countries have understood the distinction between…

Makes sense. Thanks for clarifying. Is hemp a controlled substance federally too?

Hemp is regulated as an agricultural commodity by the USDA. My company based in Oregon is licensed by the Oregon Department of Agriculture. Whereas in cannabis legal states, cannabis is regulated by something mirroring alcohol/tobacco, hemp is very different.

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#113

Post by cweagans »

immad wrote: post #5

I am co-founder, CEO of Mercury. Excited to see this on HN. Happy to answer any questions. We set out wanting to: a) deliver an amazing online banking experience for startups b) help entrepreneurs understand their revenues/costs better and succeed c) deliver great financial services. We have a long way to go but are excited to unveil what we have achieved so far. Mercury will provide your startup a FDIC-insured check…

Will you issue multiple debit cards for a particular account? The other banks I'm looking at don't (Azlo, Banknovo).

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#115

Post by amluto »

chewmieser wrote: post #96
amluto wrote: post #67

Do you have or can you add real check and ACH withdrawal security? I want my bank to decline all externally initiated withdrawals unless explicitly authorized. In other words, when I write a check, I want to tell my bank, and if someone tries to cash a check drawn on my account, I want it to be rejected. The same should go for ACH debits. This might be harder, but it would be even better if unrecognized debits we’re…

FYI this is called Positive Pay (at least for checks, although it looks like some banks offer ACH Positive Pay). We upload a file daily to our bank that says "you can allow these check numbers to go through," and anything else would be rejected.

Right, I know it had a name.

I find it rather surprising that Reg E mostly doesn't protect business accounts. IMO if an account doesn't have Positive Pay or a similar protection, then that account should get the full benefit of Reg E protections. This would probably give the banks a nice incentive to implement Positive Pay for free for all business accounts, since Reg E can be expensive and complicated for the banks.

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#116

Post by MaxGabriel »

craigsmansion wrote: post #41
MaxGabriel wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We were a team of 3, with the CEO and myself technical, so ultimately it came down to just co-founder trust. Immad was somewhat skeptical, but after interviewing some amazing candidates who wanted to work for us to use Haskell, he's really liked it. Development was pretty simple, I just created a yesod-postgres template and we got started with authentication. Are you asking about something specific?

Thanks for your reply. My question wasn't specific, more of a general approach, like how to find people and how to get started with development, etc. So a small team with technically capable people with I guess little outside interference, that makes sense. I guess I was hoping for a good approach on how to make Haskell/ML/ palatable to decision people who aren't all that technically inclined.

Hopefully Mercury can be a success story you can cite :)

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#117

Post by craigsmansion »

MaxGabriel wrote: post #116
craigsmansion wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for your reply. My question wasn't specific, more of a general approach, like how to find people and how to get started with development, etc. So a small team with technically capable people with I guess little outside interference, that makes sense. I guess I was hoping for a good approach on how to make Haskell/ML/ palatable to decision people who aren't all that technically inclined.

Hopefully Mercury can be a success story you can cite :)

I hope so. A backend using Haskell sure would be a selling point for me. I shudder to think of the software that is currently used by many financial firms to handle backend interactions.

Best of luck!

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#119

Post by typo_hunter »

j-zhang wrote: post #42
typo_hunter wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beautiful UI, really well-done! What was the toughest decision made in the process of crafting the UX?

Jumping in for Max here. It was actually pretty tough for us to figure out how to name ACH as a payment method. One of our goals going into Mercury was to stay away from acronyms or confusing bank terminology as much as possible. Most banks hide ACH behind "bill pay" or use nonstandard terms like "electronic check" or "e-transfer" which are also confusing and don't describe the payment method clearly. We wanted to ex…

Thank you for the response! It's always fascinating to me to hear about the debates/conversations that shaped the final product.

Best of luck, can't wait to see where it goes!

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#120

Post by markdown »

immad wrote: post #76
markdown wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does one need to be present to open a business account if they're a foreigner? As an example, Silicon Valley Bank doesn't require physical presence when opening an account via Stripe Atlas.

Nope. Though we can only send debit cards within the US

Good to know. Thanks.
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