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Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

root.co.za

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Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#241

Post by apostacy »

moftz wrote: post #207
apostacy wrote: post #135

When can I have direct control of recurring payments? I want to be able to "push" money instead of having it "pulled" from my account. This is a totally reasonable feature. If a merchant wants assurance that they will be paid, they should charge a deposit. The closest I've had is Entropay, but I don't really trust them for large payments. Recurring payments are so abused, I can't count how many times I have been misl…

I wish I could just have the ability to create virtual credit card numbers. I would be able to fill it with a certain balance, set up recurring balance refills, change the expiration date, keep a merchant whitelist, and cancel the number at any time. This gives me the opportunity to make sure that even if my card number was stolen or abused, the charge won't go through. If I sign up for a free trial or a service I on…

I use entropay.com, which lets you create virtual credit cards, and pre-charge them. And if the account runs out of money, the transaction is declined, and the merchant has no way to get your money after that.

As a warning, there are some problems with entropay.com though. Over the last year, some merchants have been able to detect that entropay.com virtual credit cards are prepaid, and require a plastic card. Also, entropy cards are from Malta, so companies like Spotify or Netflix will only give you access to content licensed there. Finally, and most importantly, entropay.com has a tendency to "float" your money, and I've heard that sometimes they just snatch it. I've never dealt with more than $150 at a time.

Since they are based in Malta, I think it would be very hard to dispute anything with them. But if you have to do any bigger transactions, you should use a bank here anyway. But it's great for trying out services where you don't trust them, or are just concerned with overages. I use them as a buffer for a lot of recurring payments.

I've seen some services on hackernews that offer virtual credit cards, but the problem is, that they all are tied to some underlying checking account, and even if the prepaid balance is declined, the company is obligated to somehow collect the money, if they can. There's no way to simply cancel a recurring payment. I'm sure that this is because they are required to by banks in the US.

I really wanted to have a complex money firewall, like you describe, but in practice, I've ended up just using plain old credit cards for most things. It is still very good to have an entropay account, though.

Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#242

Post by simooooo »

jacksnipe wrote: post #215

At first I was wondering what I could possibly use this for, but as I sat and thought about it, I realized the possibilities are enormous. I'd like to know if the following are possible: 1. Forcing me to stay on budget, unless there's an emergency (perhaps allow purchases over budget after the third attempt). 2. Automatically distribute paychecks or other income into different accounts (some to retirement, some to sa…

My only worry would be rejecting the payment might cause your card to be gobbled by an ATM

Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#243

Post by hasbroslasher »

trowawee wrote: post #159
graedus wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's untraceable Feature of cash, not a bug. It's not the best choice for every situation, but neither is digital, which is why it's important that people have both options available.

Yeah, the ability to make payments outside of the scope of the panopticon is one of the better arguments in favor of cash and against a completely cashless society.

I'd like to think that in time someone will solve this too by some kind of clever obfuscation, but it's not going to be BoA doing it. It's going to be someone who wants to fuck with their status as a state-sponsored usurer. Or at least I hope.

Also consider Bitcoin as a "cashless society" alternative to the financial panopticon - no one's looking over your shoulder there and it's definitely not "cash".

Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#244

Post by simooooo »

jacksnipe wrote: post #215

At first I was wondering what I could possibly use this for, but as I sat and thought about it, I realized the possibilities are enormous. I'd like to know if the following are possible: 1. Forcing me to stay on budget, unless there's an emergency (perhaps allow purchases over budget after the third attempt). 2. Automatically distribute paychecks or other income into different accounts (some to retirement, some to sa…

My only worry would be rejecting the payment might cause your card to be gobbled by an ATM

Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#245

Post by scardine »

louwhopley wrote: post #208
RangerScience wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Is there any way to get the itemized receipt as part of the event information? (I don't even know if that's sent by the credit card widgets...) 2) What are your plans for supporting other languages? ( cough Ruby cough ) 3) How would I make a script integrate with a 3rd service?

Hi RangerScience, the APIs are based on REST, so any language that can handle https are supported. We're also working on libraries for a bunch of popular languages :)

I would like to volunteer writing bindings for Python.

Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#246

Post by eb0la »

egeozcan wrote: post #9

I'd like to have something like this for Germany. I am willing to pay 10€/month for a simple API access to my bank account. I need neither hosted code nor push. Just give me remote access for my scripts. Probably I'm asking for the impossible because of the heavy regulation in Germany but just wanted to put it out there.

For spain, too. Actually I am forwarding this to a friend in a huge bank. Hope this helps :-)

Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#247

Post by Meekro »

Anyone remember Seed[1], the YC startup that tried to do programmable bank accounts years ago? They did eventually launch, and I have an account, but all the programmable stuff went away and we're left with basic business bank accounts rather than the original vision.

I wonder what happened there, and I hope Root can better stay on track!

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9066363

Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#248

Post by apostacy »

ChristianBundy wrote: post #216
jacksnipe wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This screenshot from the front page seems to be offering something like what you want? [1] And they clearly support virtual cards so why wouldn't automating that work through their API? [2] [1] https://root.co.za/images/rootcode.svg [2] https://root.co.za/images/mobile-desktop-mockup.jpg EDITS: added 2nd part and formatting

True, although I wonder whether the transaction can be asynchronous. For example, if you don't approve or deny within a few seconds, I'd be willing to bet that the transaction times out. This would be fine for in-person transactions, where you can approve it on your phone, but for transactions you aren't expecting (e.g. recurring monthly subscriptions) it seems like you'd need some notice -- or a long timeout period.

I'd love to collapse all of my recurring payments into a monthly report, that I can review and authorize. This is exactly the thing banks are suited to handle.

It would also be cool if a bank could abstract bill payments for me, where they present the debit, and show the time window to pay it, and let me select what business day to process it on.

Actually, all of these services exist in one form or another. If you have a business account. And most banks have bill payment processing. But I'm surprised that no bank is offering these services bundled together, directly to consumers. I'd happily pay for a checking account console.

Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#249

Post by cortesoft »

hart_russell wrote: post #226
pdelbarba wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really like all of this. In particular I wish there was a way of setting your own fraud prevention constraints instead of having the bank try and figure out what your patterns are. I assume they don't because they're afraid of Average Joe disabling everything because they're annoyed and know the card company will reimburse it all anyway.

I had someone buy $200 worth of jeans 800 miles away from my home a few months ago... for some reason Visa did not find that suspicious. I was smart enough to thoroughly read my statement that month and dispute that charge.

With Chase, and probably others, you can have them send an SMS message for every purchase. It is really helpful for discovering fraud.

Re: Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

#250

Post by trowawee »

hasbroslasher wrote: post #243
trowawee wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, the ability to make payments outside of the scope of the panopticon is one of the better arguments in favor of cash and against a completely cashless society.

I'd like to think that in time someone will solve this too by some kind of clever obfuscation, but it's not going to be BoA doing it. It's going to be someone who wants to fuck with their status as a state-sponsored usurer. Or at least I hope. Also consider Bitcoin as a "cashless society" alternative to the financial panopticon - no one's looking over your shoulder there and it's definitely not "cash".

I'm skeptical about Bitcoin as a potential alternative because I suspect that, if you combine the surveillance abilities of the state and the money of the state with the time and effort of the very many clever people who work for the state, Bitcoin will become substantially less anonymous.
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