jslampe

Free tool for those in ADO

https://developers.basistheory.com/guides/migrating-off-basi...

This article woefully undersells this development. As of today, Australia is the proud new owner of the world's most advanced payment system. This thing has it all, central directories, fraud sharing services, and an infrastructure BUILT for access by the private sector. There's some governance items and constraints here and there, but otherwise this is insanely advanced.

Agreed. What this article doesn't mention is that the NPP is now the world's most sophisticated payment system. The things this thing can do is insane.

No, the NPP is a backend settlement infrastructure used by the central bank. Zelle would be an example of an overlay service, utility or interface to engage with the settlement system. The Clearing House's RTP, UK's FPS, or Singapore's FAST would be more akin to the NPP. NOTE: Zelle is not currently using RTP, but will likely use it in the coming months or years.

See: craigslist

I believe he was being facetious.

Like the channel 4 news gang, our good friends at Demand Progress have officially re-assembled the ol' gang to relaunch, "Battle for the Net" (www.battleforthenet.com), today. This is the same team that helped spearhead the 2015 campaign that successfully changed Chairman Wheeler's mind to protect the Internet as a Utility. They've already collected over 800 startup signatures (including our own) and is now gearing up for an intense war with Trump's administration and the ISP heavyweights.... again.

I can appreciate the concerns some have voiced, but there's two main arguments for this approach.

1. It's better than what we have today. 2. PSD2 is standardizing and increasing access to financial data, making the entire ecosystem more competitive.

Regarding #1: I understand the concerns regarding privacy and security, but this injects a whole new range of improvement that quite honestly we don't have today. Unlike many countries that have rendered their bank account number useless, the US has not. Today, we all provide our bank account numbers to a variety of companies (our jobs for salary, rent, etc.) via a direct credit or debit authorization form to a third party. The proliferation of Private Account Numberss in the digital age is exactly what's makes them such a high-value target for criminals. A digital authentication and authorization approach allows us to set parameters around authorization, rotate keys, create programmatic constraints, inject real-time security, and a number of other consumer controls (e.g. remove authorization for that annoying magazine company that charges me every month for that Better Homes and Gardens magazine I never ordered). This can all be done without providing the level of access we and banks provide on our behalf every day.

Regarding #2: Banks are great at a number of things, like holding and securing our money. They're terrible at responding to market forces or consumer concerns. Instead, they use the mountains of red tape and regulation to fortify themselves from new market entrants. Greater, more open access to financial information levels the playing field; thus, increasing both innovation and better pricing for all.

TL;DR - this is way better than what we have today.

This guy gets it.

Dwolla | Cloud Systems Engineer | Des Moines, IA | Full Time | Onsite | https://www.Dwolla.com/

We care about mastering the ideal way to move money. At Dwolla, we empower our engineers to select the right languages, tools, and libraries for the job and deliver products based on those choices. If you want to become of a master of your craft while building something that matters, Dwolla may be right for you.

We've been growing quickly and we're looking to hire a Cloud Systems Engineer!

If you're interested, check out our job posting to apply or ask more questions (https://careers.jobscore.com/careers/dwolla/jobs/cloud-syste...)

100% agree, but there are some exciting banks out there doing innovative things (e.g. BBVA, Santandar, US Bank, Fidor, Silicon Valley Bank). There future of Open Banking is coming... It's just not here yet and I wouldn't hold your breath.

In the meantime...

Work at Dwolla. What us and others, like Plaid, have done is taken these partnerships, resources, compliance requirements, etc. and smashed them into endpoints, creating [hopefully] something you're looking for. Our White Label and co-branded APIs (https://developers.dwolla.com/). A quick list.

Create Bank Transfers - Yes Know Your Customer Verification - Yes Sandbox - Yes Bank account verification - Yes Webhooks - Yes Oauth - Yes (Co-branded only) Create Customer Records - Yes (White Label only)

Reach out to Spencer@Dwolla.com, if you think we can help to. (While we don't work directly with Plaid, we can be complimentary).

(fair warning, didn't edit this)

Are the advances in the ACH system going to do away with fees that include a percentage component?

See my answer to @hannan below. (Short answer: yes)

I would be very surprised if banks simply decided to voluntarily step back from a system that will enable them to have more control over the US economy than the federal government.

I don't think I've ever heard this more accurately or succinctly put. In this megathread, here on HN, everyone thinks it's about banks wanting money. From working with banks on this for nearly 5 years, this isn't true. They're fighting for relevancy, the status quo. They've had control over this system since the 70s and have built fortification after fortification (through regulation, technology, etc.) to protect themselves from the whims of trending market forces.

But you remember in Rocky 4, when Rocky made Ivan Drago (the invincible super-soldier) bleed? (source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VefZwIhCdqI) It showed Balboa that Ivan was human, had vulnerabilities. The match shifted after that.

The fear Ivan felt is exactly how financial institutions feel now. New market entrants (see: Apple, Stripe, BTC, Dwolla), regulatory uncertainty (CFPB, Dodd-Frank, etc), and changing customer expectations (real-time communication, uberization, etc) have shown banks that they're no longer unaffected to the whims and trends of consumer innovation.

This is why they're at the table (despite torpedoing Same-Day ACH in 2011). They're choosing the least worst of two options: have the Fed step-in with a mandate (could get from congress in the next 2 years) or inform the next infrastructure of the US economy.

The good news is that this time, unlike in the 70s, it's not just banks designing the system. Fed Fast Task Force is comprised of consumer groups, retailers, innovative tech companies (including Dwolla, Ripple, and many more), regulators, academics, and many more. We may not have as many cards as we think, but we've been able to influence some pretty key decisions.

Also, banks aren't always the villians we make'em out to be. Behind those logos are real people that really want a better payment system, not just to protect their bottom-line but because they want something better for their families, neighbors, and (selfishly) themselves. We'll get lapped by other economies if we don't (See: 37 other nations with or creating a real-time system). They're fighting hard to make the best system possible, given their constraints (fraud, liability, existing regulation, and, yes, their P&L).

We live in a capitalist country where no endeavor willl be undertaken without some vision for profitability. This is fair. Stakeholders in the new system, the ones that put up the money to build and support the system (Financial Institutions, providers, etc), will need to find a way to compensate themselves for their investment and prove to their share holders the fiduciary value of doing so.

From there, there are three factors that will most influence pricing.

1) Scale: how many transactions the system as a whole will process? We're all familiar with Wires and how expensive they're compared to ACH. That's because they don't have the critical mass or number of transaction ACH does. The more transactions on the system, the less financial burden the system has to assess on the end-users. 2) Market forces: How providers will price their services all depends on the market and their target customers. You mention stripe's percentage model, that's their business decision. Dwolla, a counterpoint, offers a flat fixed monthly model. The intelligence that formed the pricing models is what makes the free market so powerful. 3) Fraud: How this system mitigates fraud (through tokenization, improved fraud sharing among participants, better authorization practices, etc.) will greatly influence how much financial burden is passed on to us, the consumer. Good news is that we're starting over. LOTS OF POTENTIAL HERE!

This used to be a big thing, but since Check 21 and truncation that amount of money banks made has been severely marginalized. The big reason stems for risk.

The 2-3 allows the receiving FI to mitigate, IIRC, around 70% of the risk associated with the most popular types of rejects. (e.g. insufficient funds)

Source: I one of the elected tech-reps on the The Faster Payment Task Force,a Fed-chartered initiative to create a real-time improved bank transfer system, like the one in the UK. I also work at Dwolla, a payment platform that has exclusively focused on modernizing the backend ACH system for over 5 years, as well as created our own real-time system for banks (See: FiSync).

There's a lot of good, and bad, information here. It's all impossible to tackle, so I'm going to point to the good things the US has going for it. (Worth getting other Fed Fast members and doing an AMA? Let me know):

1) As many mentioned, Same-Day ACH is coming (slowly but surely). Although not real-time, it will be a helpful stopgap as more real-time systems come online at financial institutions (see: #3). Combined with new Payment API Platforms, like Dwolla, many of us are enabling meaningful access and adding flexibility to an otherwise outdated platform. This will position platforms to take advantage of these new timeframes when they start arriving late 2016 and 2017. 2) The major ACH operators, The Federal Reserve and the bank-owned The Clearing House, are both making significant investments in their tech stack to enable real-time capabilities (The Fed just inked a $17M deal with IBM to update their software and capabilities, and TCH signed a deal with UK Faster Payments Provider, VocaLink). 3) The Faster Payment Task Force is an unprecedented market-led initiative, which despite all odds, that actually making meaningful progress on aligning the criteria and expectations for an interoperable real-time system. This is HUGE. Imagine cramming +300 lifelong competitors, embattled legal adversaries, entrenched interests, and long-standing rivalries in one room to debate the future of a trillion dollar landscape. Now imagine them to agreeing to create a better system. And I'm not just talking about improvements in speed, but better security, flexibility, and capabilities that could enable the next wave of commerce. Keep your eyes on https://fedpaymentsimprovement.org/, big news is coming in the next few weeks.

ACH for B2B is a significant chunk of that money, so is payroll. It's also admittedly misleading because the card networks use ACH significantly to settle money from Bank A to Bank B (i.e. on "the backend").

This is poignantly addressed by @PC's comment addressing whether or not this would be available with Stripe Checkout.

ACH, for now, is generally terrible in retail situations. NO one wants to wait an additional 2-3 days (to all for funds to clear) to see their shipment be sent from Amazon. There are some niche use cases where it may work for pay-ins, for example online custom wood shops—where there's a built in delay to build the product—or other services where physical products don't need to change hands.

How much time do you have? The rule book is like 600-700 pages. The best route I recommend is to engage your bank or processor, like Dwolla or Stripe, with your use case. They should be able to quickly identify what the requirements are for your platform.

I would also argue that ACH process $40T a year, while all credit and debit card networks move a collective ~$7T.

Not necessarily. BBVA has already this with Dwolla's real-time payment tech, FiSync. (Limited, I know, but it's the only cool proof of concept like it out in the wild)

Also, there's been a lot of work done through the Fed's remittance coalition on a supradirectory for destinations. Adding authentication capabilities would be the next logical step and they've already committed to using open standards (lots of ISO stuff to compete with though). Combined with whisperings of big bank projects and JP Morgan's CEO very vocal hatred for screen scraping, Oauth could be a powerful and quick-to-market alternative.

I haven't seen it first hand, but lots of our current customers ditched them (and others) after working with their APIs or lack thereof (#xml).

In general, ACH just wasn't built to accommodate "platforms" as an entity in the transaction cycle. Banks, while although cheap, have a problem reconciling their infrastructure and processes with today's expectations. Not to mention their services don't package or include other compliance required to leverage ACH legally (KYC, OFAC, reporting, reject handling, etc.).

Bottom-line: ACH and traditional providers are not suitable options for today's platforms. Among others, banks are hemorrhaging ACH-related business to companies like Stripe and Dwolla.

I should also note that there is powerful Fed-chartered initiative, called the Faster Payments Task Force, going on right now. It combines +300 of the nation's payment stakeholders (including big banks, networks, retailers, etc). We've made a ton of meaningful progress on speed, standards, and more.

Big news coming in the next few weeks...

(learn more at https://fedpaymentsimprovement.org/)

TL;DR ACH is a commodity. The business model is derived by the platforms services offered, flexibility provided, and business targeted.

ACH is a heavily commoditized product. For ACH processors, then, your business model is tied to the functionality and capabilities offered by the platform. Dwolla, which has spent the last 4 years exclusively building out its ACH API, has a range of free and paid-for products and services. This allows us to offer a fixed flat-fee price point based on the additional value we bring to platforms (instant account verification, next-day processing, higher limits, holding balances, etc.).

Both services do an excellent job at baking in the expensive compliance, support, regulatory, etc. into their products.

I used to turn on FIFA '06 on the background just to hear the soundtrack.

Find the widget at http://battleforthenet.com/sept10th

I agree, but it's a rallying cry and a starting point for the community to cling to, if only momentarily. As a region evolves, the tech, talent, and culture will rise above the name.

To add onto that, if you think about it, a lot of other payment platforms already do this without your knowledge.

How else do you think you get stuck with recurring magazine charges for Highlights Magazine... Or is that just me? Anyway, when we do it you have total and utter control over the access third parties have.

Another way to look at it: What if Visa allowed you to see everyone that has had access to your billing information to revoke or change it as you pleased? We thought that'd be huge, especially because you, the consumer, aren't exposing personal information. Also, because 3rd parties aren't allowed to access or store your credentials, they don't have the liability of protecting it.

It's still permission oriented, like swiping, but centralized for independent control.

Go here to see what it will look like to manage those "permissions": http://www.dwolla.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Grid-c...

Hey, I went ahead and updated that per a conversation below, sorry for the confusion. Yes, we do keep our 25 cents and is still far cheaper than the 2-6% interchange and 30 cent processing fees associated with the other networks. It's also a safer network for developers, as they're not responsible for handling and storing credentials (#sony).

To clarify, I kept the update (the thing I think you're quoting)at the bottom, but changed some of the verbiage in the post to better reflect this.

Hmm, sorry. Could you e-mail us with some more specifics? Give me or a new voice another chance to answer?

While we do have carried balances, which is stored by our other investors (non-interest baring), The Veridian Group, we do differ from PayPal on several fronts (disclaimer: PR messaging, sorry).

1.) Low-cost, flat fee of 25 cents 2.) Social integration (with Facebook and Twitter) for p2p transfers 3.) Location-based payments (see Dwolla Spots) 4.) FiSync, our financial services product(see TechCrunch coverage here: http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/25/dwollas-fisync-lets-you-ins... 5.) And now Grid (which theoretically could allow us to be a loading mechanism for PayPal)