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Increase: Banking API

increase.com

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Re: Increase: Banking API

#71

Post by londons_explore »

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 easy... a banking API so you can split the million dollars you want to launder into 1 million 1 dollar payments. And an API client which lets you treat each login cookie and account as an object in python.

Before long, the API and all users who had ever used it were perma-banned from the bank, because it was determined they posed too high a fraud/money-laundering risk.

I'm still salty because, after spending a week of my life building and refining that API, they banned me and 6 years later still claim they can't return the $350 that was in the account because they are still 'investigating'.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#72

Post by pen2l »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #62
chocolatkey wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Have you seen https://www.deel.com ? Might be a solution for this problem.

That, Payoneer (which has a sufficiently extensive API), and I think Stripe can also handle payouts: https://stripe.com/connect/marketplaces

(possibly I'm misreading Stripe marketplaces' offerings, please correct me if I am)

Re: Increase: Banking API

#73

Post by pbreit »

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.

For one, Column is a bank.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#74

Post by bob1029 »

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.

> 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.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#76

Post by pbreit »

pen2l wrote: post #25

Their lead UI guy was previously the UI lead at Stripe. I think of him as someone who appreciates and understands the importance of well-thought-out UI so I'm looking forward to how Increase pans out for that reason in particular.

I wonder who else is behind this?

https://www.linkedin.com/company/increasebank/people/

Re: Increase: Banking API

#77

Post by chocolatkey »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #62
chocolatkey wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Have you seen https://www.deel.com ? Might be a solution for this problem.

$49/contract per month is just way way too much, sorry. Some freelancers don't even get paid that much in a month with the work they are doing. And with the churn we have as well, at a per contract rate we'd be pouring insane amounts of money into this solution. And they also aren't open about what payout payment methods they offer, that is not a good start.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#78

Post by arghwhat »

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.

Conventional banks provide all of the above (including open banking API) except instant virtual cards here in Scandinavia, so nothing to do with building from scratch. Just a matter of priorities and healthy competition.

The neobanks are all very incremental improvements, and is largely just packaging. E.g., Lunar being app-only obviously has a somewhat more modern app than the average bank.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#79

Post by blantonl »

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…

No good deed does unpunished.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#80

Post by JohnFen »

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…

> 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.

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