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Increase: Banking API

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Re: Increase: Banking API

#91

Post by sefrost »

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.

What about Monzo or Starling in the UK? What is the grumpy old bank behind them?

Re: Increase: Banking API

#92

Post by londons_explore »

JohnFen wrote: post #80
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.

Yes, but when your script splits money into random amounts and puts things like "pizza money", "rent" and "happy birthday" into the reference field, across thousands of accounts, most of whom also have a real user doing real transactions intermingled, suddenly it gets a lot harder for the bank to filter.

The bank typically has a rather simplistic set of rules to decide to investigate transactions (because they need to be able to explain how the rules work in a meeting with the government whenever their rules miss someone). Things like "Transaction was over $1000 to a new payee or the reference contained the word 'bitcoin'". The investigation will typically involve a human calling the customer, and sometimes asking for more evidence of what the transfer was for - for example, please send us the receipt for the car you said you bought. It's quite an expensive process for the bank.

So, when someone via the API sends tens of thousands of transfers, the bank is spending lots of human hours verifying some/all of those. "My script sent $55 to some stranger because I won a fully automated bet on the weather" is far harder to verify with documentation too. And when some slip through the cracks, they get in trouble with the regulator.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#93

Post by redox99 »

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 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.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#94

Post by londons_explore »

jjcm wrote: post #87
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…

A part of me really wants you to check in with them every year, to see how long they can claim they're "still investigating" for. This is great insight though re: money laundering. Something I'd have never expected would be the result of an API.

Don't worry... I do...

The guy assigned to my case retired. As did the next guy. And now there is a lady assigned to the case, but she has been out of the office for all of the last 3 years...

Every time I call, I get told they can't discuss cases over the phone, but that they will send me a paper letter as an update... And it isn't a template letter either... But it always just says I need to keep waiting and there is no action I can take to speed the process up...

Re: Increase: Banking API

#95

Post by NoboruWataya »

yboris wrote: post #90
blantonl wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No good deed does unpunished.

I think this is one of the most unfortunate memes that people for some reason still continue to share. Think about what it teaches children when they hear it? What kind of a world view does it instill? By saying the phrase you are explicitly communicating the idea that it is (at least is some sense) better to not do good deeds.

I don't think people are out there teaching kids to live their lives by this mantra. It's not intended to be a life philosophy, more of a bleak and darkly humorous observation. Sure, it's not always true, but it sure does feel like it sometimes.

Kind of like "life's a bitch, and then you die", it's not meant to be taken too seriously.

Re: Increase: Banking API

#96

Post by mousetree »

darraghbuckley wrote: post #85
mekoka wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our users are primarily financial technology companies. As a developer, I'd love to have some more information about the typical problems that inspired Increase's value proposition. If I was meeting with a financial tech CEO tomorrow, should I assume that they probably have these problems or need this service? Are there resources that I could peruse to learn more about these common problems?

Our users are financial technology companies. They build things like payroll, loan servicing, business payments, consumer payments, investment platforms, and neo-banks. When we built Stripe, one of the largest points of friction was getting a banking partner. It took months and only after signing were we even able to start assessing the technology. There are so many potential companies that simply don't make it past…

> The US needs a bank (holding a bank charter) that's also a technology company.

Do you have plans on becoming a bank and getting a bank charter then? I've worked with several payment processors and BaaS providers that are most definitely not on that path. (CTO at neo bank).

Re: Increase: Banking API

#97

Post by NavinF »

rthomas6 wrote: post #60
Shindi wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're an enterprising individuals you can "kinda" do this but it's not easy and definitely 100% a headache. Neobanks sometimes use this notion of a virtual bank account. My understanding is that it's a single FDIC insured account that they subdivide using their own ledger. For cards, you can use Stripe Treasury or Lithic to issue your own virtual cards and their dev limits are pretty friendly. I think privacy.com…

> I can't think of a reason why you'd want to for your own purposes. It's quite simple. For argument's sake let's say I am an individual with limited willpower. Say I budget $200 per month on restaurants, and I need to stick to this to meet some other financial goal. How, as someone with limited willpower, do I enforce this? Option 1 is to keep track of and categorize all bank transactions, either manually or via a t…

If you have at least 2 credit cards from the same bank (eg one card with $20k limit and 5% cashback on restaurants and another card with $10k limit and 2% cashback on all purchases), you can call the bank and tell them to move $19,800 of the credit limit from one card to the other. That way you can't spend over $200 without using the wrong card.

Virtual debit cards are another ubiquitous solution, but they cost a lot more despite being free. Your option 3 subsidizes smarter consumers when you pay full price (which has interchange fees built-in) on everything without getting any fees returned to you in the form of cashback.

(One issue with my solution is that a lot of banks let you spend 2x your credit limit on visa signature and similar tier cards. In that case you'll have to reduce the limit to $100)

Re: Increase: Banking API

#99

Post by Seattle3503 »

londons_explore wrote: post #94
jjcm wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A part of me really wants you to check in with them every year, to see how long they can claim they're "still investigating" for. This is great insight though re: money laundering. Something I'd have never expected would be the result of an API.

Don't worry... I do... The guy assigned to my case retired. As did the next guy. And now there is a lady assigned to the case, but she has been out of the office for all of the last 3 years... Every time I call, I get told they can't discuss cases over the phone, but that they will send me a paper letter as an update... And it isn't a template letter either... But it always just says I need to keep waiting and there…

What would happen if you took them to small claims court?
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