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Mercury – Banking built for startups

mercury.co

71–80 of 124 posts

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#71

Looks good but without hijacking the thread does a service like this exist in Europe? If not is it due to different financial regulations (maybe easier to get started in the US?) or something else?

Which features in particular do you need? If you are interested in the APIs, you might be pleased to know that starting September 14th, 2019, any bank in the EU must provide public APIs by law under the PSD2 EU directive for Open Banking. Most banks are already compliant (although their APIs are not exceptional).

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#73
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually most banks make money on deposits and thats their primary source of revenue. We have a rev-share with the bank on deposits revenue. Most of the time there is no good reasons for there to be any fees in our opinion.

I had previously read somewhere that the actual cost to a bank for sending/receiving wires (even international) is less than $1. Why do banks still charge so much for this service?

Because by the time you want to send a wire, you've already decided where to put your money. Plus, it's often a relatively large amount of money an the fee doesn't seem so big.

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#74
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you folks integrated with Quickbooks or Xero yet? I didn't see any info on the website. Are there mobile apps? Mobile check deposit? If so, any limits on it?

Quickbooks/Xero - We do a compatible data export for them. Which works okay for our bookkeepers (Pilot). We are working on integrating with their bank aggregator. Xero will be done pretty soon. Quickbooks, I don't have an ETA on. Mobile apps - coming soon. Any particular features you would like to see. Check deposits - will be live on the website first, early next week. Limits - For most types of transactions they ar…

Really looking forward to your Xero integration, that's currently a must for us (daily sync so we can reconcile customer invoice payments) otherwise Mercury looks great. The Big Bank we use right now don't provide sending ACH or wires online, you have to call them and they give you a confirmation call back about an hour later. It is a giant pain in the behind and completely ridiculous in this day and age.

Once you get automatic Xero sync working we'll be there!

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#75
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…

Do you work with hemp companies?

Unfortunately not.

Until federal laws change (which might be soon) we can’t bank anything marijuana related.

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#76
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company has to be incorporated in the US. But the founder can be foreign. Unfortunately banking is a very geo by geo thing in terms of regulation, payment rails, banking partnerships etc. We don't have any immediate plans to launch outside the US, though I would love to be global from day 1 if we could.

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

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#77
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quickbooks/Xero - We do a compatible data export for them. Which works okay for our bookkeepers (Pilot). We are working on integrating with their bank aggregator. Xero will be done pretty soon. Quickbooks, I don't have an ETA on. Mobile apps - coming soon. Any particular features you would like to see. Check deposits - will be live on the website first, early next week. Limits - For most types of transactions they ar…

Really looking forward to your Xero integration, that's currently a must for us (daily sync so we can reconcile customer invoice payments) otherwise Mercury looks great. The Big Bank we use right now don't provide sending ACH or wires online, you have to call them and they give you a confirmation call back about an hour later. It is a giant pain in the behind and completely ridiculous in this day and age. Once you ge…

Awesome. Please email me and I can update you when that’s live.

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#78
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…

ACH - a basic account can’t have this protection. We have an idea for an account that is for sending only that is always 0-balanced. That’s not live yet, but perhaps it would satisfy your request.

Check - you can send a check to a specific person from the Mercury dashboard but you can’t print a blank check against the account. That would be rejected. So standard check fraud is not possible.

Re: Mercury – Banking built for startups

#79

What the story on fraud? I was surprised to discover that business bank accounts aren't governed by the same protections that consumer accounts are (Reg E). What happens if a criminal commits ACH fraud and is successful? Are Mercury's customers protected by some sort of guarantee, other than FDIC which only seems to cover bank insolvency?

ACH fraud protection is available to Mercury customers. I believe you have 90 days to reverse an ACH.

Customers do have better protection than businesses but in reality most banks extend the same rules to both.

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