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Increase: Banking API

increase.com

221–230 of 305 posts

Re: Increase: Banking API

#221

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…

[deleted]

Re: Increase: Banking API

#222
The underlying banks are Blue Ridge Bank and First Internet Bank terms. Blue ridge is popular for powering BAAS companies like Unit. Not sure of First Internet Bank, but both of these are legit, and the fact that they got two banks to start with is a great accomplishment.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do the launderers have access to thousands of accounts? And why wouldn't the actual owners of the accounts report the transactions?

The api seems to let you create new accounts fairly easily. Seems odd to me as the API provider is the bank. Based on KYC I presume they think they are all splits of the same account holder? I learned the other day that the name on account means shit, because scammers often give $account_details + $catfish_name and receive the money to $bank_details + $real_name. I don’t see how splitting to 1000 transactions and sen…

This. They're just "virtual accounts" under a single partner to the bank. If the service groups your payments with some other parties, in some weird mining strategy, then you might have risk. But if your parties grouped together on transactions appear to be cartel money launderers, you can definitely expect some calls from the bank. And the FBI. And your transactions related to that party in any way not to go through. It's a big part of compliance. Neobanks typically take their licenses from very well established banks who trust them and their partners to not expose tons of risk. It's a burgeoning market. They face competitive and regulatory pressures forcing them to strategize on this very well.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#225
post #8

Looks cool, but having trouble wrapping my head around a potential use case for this.

I have a real-life scenario that applies to my business: we employee 50+ freelancers ee pay every month. I dread when it comes time to pay them, because I have to log into multiple bank account and manually send each transfer using clunky web UIs. I am just copy-pasting all this data from a spreadsheet where it's already been verified. If I could automate payments to a sizeable portion of the freelancers, it would sa…

Hit me up, colton@routefusion.com, happy to chat around this :)

Re: Increase: Banking API

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

INAL, but just to give one more example. If you're depositing >$10k cash into a bank, you (or your bank) have to report that to the IRS. If it's legally acquired, that's fine. However, breaking that same transition up into multiple transactions in order to avoid this reporting requirement is called "structuring," and it's a felony, even if the money was totally legitimate. => https://www.mybanktracker.com/checking/fa…

But that's Actual Cash. Moving $20k fully electronic (eg:ACH) doesn't have that requirement. But lots of systems have limits based on risk windows.

Yes, for example real time NACHA payment event streams are actually windowed by periods governed by each transaction's exposure to risk and corresponding risk classification windows.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#228
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.

Yes! We're obviously not the first to see the need! I think there are many engineers who are frustrated knowing the data and capabilities that exist in banking that aren't exposed programmatically. There are at least four (and I'm undoubtedly missing many!) interesting companies aiming to combine technology and a bank charter: - Luna[0]. - M1 Finance[1]. - Column[2]. - Increase[3]. Building a bank involves reading, u…

If Increase has a bank charter why does the site say "Bank accounts and banking services are provided by Increase’s partner banks"?

Re: Increase: Banking API

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but when your script splits money into random amounts and puts things like "pizza money", "rent" and "happy birthday" into the reference field, across thousands of accounts, most of whom also have a real user doing real transactions intermingled, suddenly it gets a lot harder for the bank to filter. The bank typically has a rather simplistic set of rules to decide to investigate transactions (because they need t…

This is why every time I send money via Venmo I label it "drugs" (or a specific drug, like "pure Colombian cocaine" or "crystal meth").

I think the IRL version of this is buying cocaine, rubbing it over all yor cash, and then using it as your cash without actually using the cocaine. It'll def just be ignored, as it's on a high percentage of notes[1] for any transaction anyways [2]. Banks use ml scoring algorithms and im not sure mentioning cocaine in notes for a RTP/The Clearing House transaction would actually go unnoticed.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contaminated_currency

[2] https://cipherblade.com/blog/tainted-bitcoin-isnt-what-you-t...

Re: Increase: Banking API

#230
post #37
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, an…

curl -X "POST" \ --url https://api.increase.com/check_transfers \ -H "Authorization: Bearer ${INCREASE_API_KEY}" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d $'{ "account_id": "account0", "address_line1": "33 Liberty Street", "address_city": "New York", "address_state": "NY", "address_zip": "10045", "amount": 1000, "message": "Check payment", "recipient_name": "Ian Crease" }' Well it would certainly be nice if I can se…

you do not have an address line 2

you do not have an address line 3

the amount data type is not clear (is that an integer representing pennies, is it a floating point? shouldnt be using floating point for banking)

recipient name is not broken up into first name, middle name, last name. are you users going to be putting "last, first" as well as "first last"?

if you sent that from the command line, then your banking information would be in your bash history, saved on disk

etc etc etc etc

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