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Increase: Banking API

increase.com

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Re: Increase: Banking API

#151

Post by cyclotron3k »

swyx wrote: post #39
darraghbuckley wrote: post #19

Thanks @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 soun…

heya! i'm casually interested in the space, and also have been tracking Column ( https://column.com/ ) to a distant observer, you look similar, but i'm sure there are real differences between you, so I'd love something like a "top 3 things to note" about Increase vs Column, in a least-getting-you-in-trouble way as possible - its hard to compare because i dont know what I don't know.

Teller (https://teller.io/) is another one I noticed a few years ago. Seems very similar.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#152

Post by monocasa »

londons_explore wrote: post #71

I made an API for a bank... I was a third party and made the API by screen scraping their webUI. I sent their devs a link and initially there were positive messages going back and forth. The API allowed you to see balance, transaction history, and make payments. Before long, the API got quite popular, and lots of people were using it to make lots of payments automatically. You know what makes money laundering super e…

Meanwhile the USAA app told me one time that the amount I was trying to move one time would be subject to additional regulations and suggested breaking breaking up the transfer.

It felt like if Clippy had an addon to it's expert system from Saul.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#153

Post by scrollaway »

cyclotron3k wrote: post #151
swyx wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

heya! i'm casually interested in the space, and also have been tracking Column ( https://column.com/ ) to a distant observer, you look similar, but i'm sure there are real differences between you, so I'd love something like a "top 3 things to note" about Increase vs Column, in a least-getting-you-in-trouble way as possible - its hard to compare because i dont know what I don't know.

Teller ( https://teller.io/ ) is another one I noticed a few years ago. Seems very similar.

No, Teller is more of a competitor to Plaid (https://plaid.com/). Plaid offers an API to perform a variety of actions with existing banks, and charges through the wazoo for it as a middleware.

Column is an actual bank, and offers exhaustive developer-first APIs. I suspect you can do a lot of things with them you cannot do with Plaid, and at highly reduced cost comparatively. Increase doesn't seem to be a bank but is a much lower-level API than Plaid and allows things like opening accounts, FWICT.

BTW, bunq (https://www.bunq.com/) is a cool nl-based bank which offers an incredibly in-depth API. But I would not call it dev-centric, the DX is awful.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#154

Post by 0x457 »

sofixa wrote: post #69
bob1029 wrote: post #58

> Anything that you can achieve with PDFs, presence, and persistence in a bank branch you can do with our API. Not sure how to take this. With a small tweak like "you can eventually do" I would let it pass without criticism. I work with bank cores, imaging, BSA and related middleware on a daily basis. The scope and complexity of these systems is incomprehensible to most. Many of our clients don't even try to think ab…

Traditional banks have literally decades of legacy to deal with which drags them down. Many neobanks have shown that it's possible to provide a better and cheaper service when you start from scratch. A few examples of features neobanks i use provide that traditional banks don't have - virtual cards on the fly, for free; SEPA Instant for free; Open API; smart dynamic budgeting and expense sharing.

Except "neobanks" legally not allowed to call themselves banks because they aren't banks. They are white-label service on top of someone who provides a banking API, and those usually sit on top of someone who provides them with some other API. There are like 3.5 real banks with "public" API that have bank chapter, if not less.

Like this Increase, "build your own bank", but themselves it isn't a bank. It's just an API to their partner banks.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#155

Post by 0x457 »

sefrost wrote: post #91
bob1029 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> legacy to deal with which drags them down A non-zero amount of that legacy is due to regulations and compliance. Most of what a bank does is totally invisible to the end customer. A "neobank" is almost always just a shiny consumer-oriented facade in front of a grumpy old bank. Someone still has to follow all of those laws.

What about Monzo or Starling in the UK? What is the grumpy old bank behind them?

Literally on index page:

This website is operated by Monzo Inc. Monzo reserves the right to restrict or revoke any and all offers at any time. The Monzo mobile banking app facilitates access to banking services through *Sutton Bank*, Member FDIC. The Monzo Mastercard Debit Card is issued by Sutton Bank, pursuant to a license from Mastercard International Incorporated. Monzo accounts are FDIC insured up to $250,000. Mastercard is a registered trademark, and the circles design is a trademark of Mastercard International Incorporated.

That's for the US branch. Monzo in the UK is a real bank.

> Starling Bank

That one is an actual bank. In the UK, it's easier to open a real bank, than in the US. Bank of England has a special division dedicated to guiding "small" companies in becoming a real bank.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#156

Post by shaburn »

vinay_ys wrote: post #88
pbreit wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For one, Column is a bank.

This is super important – if you are a chartered/regulated bank that's functioning currently then whatever you claim has merit. Otherwise it is just another software project that's going to struggle to get adoption because they won't have thought through all the regulatory and compliance issues.

And can easily violate myriads of laws that can quickly land you long prison sentences.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#157

Post by meltedcapacitor »

sofixa wrote: post #69
bob1029 wrote: post #58

> Anything that you can achieve with PDFs, presence, and persistence in a bank branch you can do with our API. Not sure how to take this. With a small tweak like "you can eventually do" I would let it pass without criticism. I work with bank cores, imaging, BSA and related middleware on a daily basis. The scope and complexity of these systems is incomprehensible to most. Many of our clients don't even try to think ab…

Traditional banks have literally decades of legacy to deal with which drags them down. Many neobanks have shown that it's possible to provide a better and cheaper service when you start from scratch. A few examples of features neobanks i use provide that traditional banks don't have - virtual cards on the fly, for free; SEPA Instant for free; Open API; smart dynamic budgeting and expense sharing.

LOL I had to change bank accounts because of a neobank that managed to get clumsy barely working IT taped together systems and pathetic app worse than any "traditional" bank. They achieved in 2 years the same crap it took the incumbent 2 centuries to do.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#158

Post by mike_d »

lisper wrote: post #82
londons_explore wrote: post #71

I made an API for a bank... I was a third party and made the API by screen scraping their webUI. I sent their devs a link and initially there were positive messages going back and forth. The API allowed you to see balance, transaction history, and make payments. Before long, the API got quite popular, and lots of people were using it to make lots of payments automatically. You know what makes money laundering super e…

Heh, you got off easy. I spent six years of actual work learning this lesson the hard way back in 2006-2012. In retrospect, I should have paid a lot more attention when Patric Collison told me he was spending his days reading up banking regulations. Eh, too boring, I thought, what could possibly be in there that a little code couldn't paper over? That mistake cost me the opportunity to be an early hire at Stripe.

Yup. This is why every attempt to provide developers better access to banking/finance is doomed to fail. Even if you buy your own bank charter, you are still subject to someone elses rules.

Your customers want to be innovative and do things they can't easily do today. On the other side is your financial network that has shut down the three previous attempts to do that exact thing because it causes a random transaction clearing server in France to burst into flames. You are now left holding the bag with both sides upset at you.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#160

Post by [deleted] »

claytongulick wrote: post #130
londons_explore wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really worth the 2 days off work it would take (1 to learn the necessary law/rules/procedures, and one to actually attend court).... Although if I'm bored in the future I might.

I heard of a case where a person did this and won their claim in small claims court, the defendant (I think it was Verizon?) never showed up. They got a default judgement, but still couldn't actually collect the amount owed. So they ended up filing a foreclosure on the actual building - and it worked! The foreclosure went through, and the company almost lost their brick and mortar store. Took years for the process, b…

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