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Square Banking

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81–90 of 174 posts

Re: Square Banking

#81
post #27

0 overdraft fees. Yay. More like it. It will force major banks to rethink their overdraft fees as a revenue center. As someone who was not so well financially just a decade ago, overdraft fees seemed like penalty for being poor. When you are living paycheck to paycheck, you never know when your account will get overdrawn. And most evil thing was - bank will deny the charge because you didn’t have enough funds but wil…

> you never know when your account will get overdrawn How? It’s not that hard to keep track of money in vs money out. I bet most of it is people that don’t understand it takes time for a cheque to clear or people that know an auto payment will overdraw their account but can’t do anything about it (ie: no money). Overdraft fees should be illegal, especially for electronic transactions that get rejected.

Banks used to structure these charges to create overdrafts whenever possible. They made it very difficult for you to see what your actual usable balance is.

They also used to be allowed to simply reject the transaction if you didn't have the money and still charge a $36 fee. It was insanity.

If your checking balance never reaches close to zero, you wouldn't notice this. I was a teenager in 2010 and definitely got hit with a bunch of overdraft fees. Banks know these fees are bullshit (even now, with increased regulation), that's why they're so quick to waive them at first.

Re: Square Banking

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is huge in an age where a lot of people are dinged through recurring subscriptions. You could rack up 5 or 6 charges and not even realize it, at which point you're out hundreds of dollars in overdraft fees.

I always struggled with this concept, why not stop at 0 when the account is overstretched? Here in Europe, for most people I would say, it's quite rare that the account goes to 0, and if it does, the transactions simply don't go through (unless it's a credit card). Isn't that asking for borrowing money at no fee? Don't get me wrong, I absolutely despise predatory bank charges, but wonder if that's a bit much to ask a…

You used to be automatically opted into overdraft. Also, you could still get hit with an overdraft fee even if they rejected the charge. Banks also used to structure transactions to force overdrafts if they could. It was really bad.

Re: Square Banking

#83

Just like a bank, without the security. Have a look like modern banks are done say in the UK - Monzo etc.

Also, just to note, Monzo USA and Monzo UK are identical in name only. The US version has a fraction of the features of the UK version and they don't seem to be iterating as quickly as other neobanks after Simple's departure.

I switched to OneFinance and have been generally happy with it as it caters most closely to the old Simple methodology, especially with configurable overdraft that was launched last month.

If anyone has experience with the others and how they've matured since Simple's departure, I'd be interesting to hear what you like and what you're excited for on their roadmap!

Re: Square Banking

#84
This was the "Aha!" part for me:

> Get a customized offer based on your card sales through Square, and then choose your loan size.

and then a bit further down:

> Repay it automatically with a percentage of your daily card sales through Square.

Such an incredibly obvious idea in hindsight. While I can see why putting all your eggs in one basket like this can pose something of a problem, there's no denying this level of integration is amazing for a small business.

Re: Square Banking

#85
post #3

This seems like a promising alternative to Simple, which shut down a few months ago

This isn't a consumer service; it's for business customers already using Square for payments and other business related expenses.

Re: Square Banking

#86

It's amazing to me how much of a better product can be created when everything is in one place. It's obvious that when you're charging customers and paying invoices through the same interface, that you'll have more visibility on your cash flow and it'll generally be easier to use, but this goes so much further. The reason those loans are easy is because Square know your history of charging customers. The reason they…

Maybe we can also start moving away from feature-limited Saas offerings that are so damn proud that they focus on One Thing And One Thing Only when customers want just one affordable app to handle all their work and not fifty-eleven ones that become crazy expensive.

> feature-limited Saas offerings that are so damn proud that they focus on One Thing And One Thing Only when customers want just one affordable app to handle all their work

As a general rule, these two would be very different target markets.

Re: Square Banking

#87
post #84

This was the "Aha!" part for me: > Get a customized offer based on your card sales through Square, and then choose your loan size. and then a bit further down: > Repay it automatically with a percentage of your daily card sales through Square. Such an incredibly obvious idea in hindsight. While I can see why putting all your eggs in one basket like this can pose something of a problem, there's no denying this level o…

Stripe has been doing this for at least a few months now… maybe since last year.

It’s a nice feature.

Frankly, PayPal has been doing a version of this for years where they would put a hold on your funds and then (usually) offer you a loan that would cover most/all of the money held. Of course, they called all the shots, but the idea was there.

Re: Square Banking

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I don't trust these startups handling my money. Not only that, but the bank that they have doing back-end services for them, Sutton Bank, seems like a tiny local bank. Guaranteed their own back-end services aren't in-house. Just no all around to this product.

Sutton has been around for 140 years. They issue the debit cards for Cash App. They also have worked with Robinhood (it looks like Robinhood may have moved on to JPM however)

I'm just saying how it looks. I'm not about trusting my money to a mom-and-pop-looking credit union that outsources everything, I want a powerful firm that does everything in-house and has robust security.

Re: Square Banking

#89

"Square, Inc. is a financial services company, not a bank. "

Yeah but the banking products are provided by a wholly owned subsidiary (savings accounts and loans) and a partner company (checking accounts and debit cards), both of which are banks. The products are indeed offered by banks owned or partnered with Square, but not directly by Square, Inc. itself.

Regardless, if Square were to offer legitimate 2FA I would probably feel more comfortable using their debit card for daily life..Can't seem to find any details regarding this on the FAQ though.

Re: Square Banking

#90

It's amazing to me how much of a better product can be created when everything is in one place. It's obvious that when you're charging customers and paying invoices through the same interface, that you'll have more visibility on your cash flow and it'll generally be easier to use, but this goes so much further. The reason those loans are easy is because Square know your history of charging customers. The reason they…

This is where fintech has been headed for some time -- a bundle of complimentary products all in a single app (payment provider + bank + loan company + crypto + etc.). Square are demonstrating this here for business, some Chinese finance apps went down this road years ago, Revolut are billing themselves as a "financial super app". There's tremendous advantage in having everything in one place. Each individual product…

Sounds like the 1990s App Edition. (Remember bancassurance, universal banking, etc.)
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