Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Increase: Banking API

increase.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

231–240 of 305 posts

Re: Increase: Banking API

#231

Post by healsjnr1 »

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…

I think this is very relevant: https://fintechbusinessweekly.substack.com/p/with-blue-ridge...

TL;DR my understanding is that if you host a banking API you are going to get a lot of scrutiny on who your customers are.

And you can expect an increasing level of compliance regulations heading your way to help regulate and prevent the problems described in the parent.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#232

Post by azureel »

Reason077 wrote: post #147
delusional wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I happen to work in a bank in Scandinavia, and you're both sort of right. We did at one point provide "open banking APIs" although we only ever approved one partner to use it, and have since shuttered it. The truth of the matter is that banking is horribly entrenched. Actual business decisions are mostly driven by arbitrary considerations of which laws to follow that day. Although we provide a ton of functionality an…

Open banking is really something that needs to be mandated by regulators. That's what happened in the UK, and now you have a wide choice of financial apps that can access accounts at any bank that implements the standard UK Open Banking APIs: https://www.openbanking.org.uk

Open Banking is a great concept. Also Turkey has an own local version of it and improving.

It's in Turkish but translate will help you get the idea: https://ohvps.github.io/v1.0.2/contents/odeme-emri-baslatma-...

Re: Increase: Banking API

#233

Post by searchableguy »

bob1029 wrote: post #74
sofixa wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

Plaid founder's new startup column is building a bank from scratch for developers.

https://column.com/

Re: Increase: Banking API

#234

Post by oogetyboogety »

csomar wrote: post #215
hattmall wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still don't understand how this facilitates money laundering? You send small amounts to a bunch of accounts and then what exactly? What is the source of the funds to launder and how/why is it already in the bank?

I don't think OP knows what he is talking about? You also need "thousands" of accounts, and unless you are opening these remotely, I don't know how you can get this many people to co-operate with your scheme. That also doesn't cover the first part: Laundering the money into the bank. (if the money is already in the banking system, there is nothing to launder). To be honest, I don't think money laundering is real, or…

Yes. It starts with sanctions on countries. Banks are only just starting to correlate payments that may actually be the same party if they are different physical institutions/entities, down to the legal entity (LEI).

Re: Increase: Banking API

#235

Post by vjk800 »

lisper wrote: post #169
mike_d wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 transactio…

I'm am often amazed that the entire world financial system hasn't collapsed yet, considering what I now know about how it is put together.

It's because approximately 100-1000 times more people and resources are used to maintain it than would be needed in any other system of similar size and technical complexity.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#236

Post by ajmurmann »

kinjba11 wrote: post #106
redox99 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to be "that guy", but this is why I hate banks and like crypto. Both the fact that crypto is obviously trivial to automate, and that banks can unilaterally ban you and steal your money.

Doesn't crypto have the same problem, with money laundering and other crimes? If you lose money with crypto, there is no one to sue nor government insurance.

Crypto has the money laundering problem, but not the problem that you cannot have APIs because of it.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#237

Post by oogetyboogety »

nulbyte wrote: post #148
JohnFen wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You know what makes money laundering super easy... a banking API so you can split the million dollars you want to launder into 1 million 1 dollar payments. That would be noticed. It's called "structuring" and is itself illegal. Banks watch for this stuff.

Structuring involves currency, not bank transfers. I believe the word you are looking for is layering.

Correct. It is called layering when money launderers buy other liquid investment instruments using the illegally placed funds.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#238

Post by delusional »

Reason077 wrote: post #147
delusional wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I happen to work in a bank in Scandinavia, and you're both sort of right. We did at one point provide "open banking APIs" although we only ever approved one partner to use it, and have since shuttered it. The truth of the matter is that banking is horribly entrenched. Actual business decisions are mostly driven by arbitrary considerations of which laws to follow that day. Although we provide a ton of functionality an…

Open banking is really something that needs to be mandated by regulators. That's what happened in the UK, and now you have a wide choice of financial apps that can access accounts at any bank that implements the standard UK Open Banking APIs: https://www.openbanking.org.uk

You're missing part of my point. Here in Denmark it supposedly already is a legal requirement. The point is that the legal obligation means nothing, because the banks are so entangled with the government that no actual policing is done.

Here's the api documentation of 25 Danish banks, including the one I'm a part of: https://apiportal.prod.bec.dk/openbanking/sandbox/product/17...

Re: Increase: Banking API

#239

Post by sofixa »

bob1029 wrote: post #74
sofixa wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

I should have specified that I'm talking about EU-based neobanks, which are all real banks as far as I am aware (some are entities of bigger banking groups, some are standalone startups).

US banking being largely obsolete as a whole (checks? paid wire transfers that take days to arrive?) probably explains why there are no real neobanks in the US and they're all just a UI in front of a legacy bank. I doubt it has much to do with regulations, because I really doubt US banks are more heavily regulated than EU banks, who also have country differences to deal with if they operate in multiple countries (Revolut, N26), and they also have to check if the customers are American tax residents and handle that case too (or simply refuse them to become customers as some banks do).

Re: Increase: Banking API

#240

Post by vjk800 »

vjk800 wrote: post #235
lisper wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm am often amazed that the entire world financial system hasn't collapsed yet, considering what I now know about how it is put together.

It's because approximately 100-1000 times more people and resources are used to maintain it than would be needed in any other system of similar size and technical complexity.

To add to my comment: since the financial system is almost impossible to fix, the problem only keeps getting worse and worse. I predict that eventually 99% of the world population is employed in somehow managing the global financial system. After that point, it just collapses and no-one knows what comes next.
Post reply on HN