13 ms·

Root partners with Standard Bank South Africa to offer programmable bank account

123 points by tefo-mohapi 10y ago

kodfodrasz 10y ago
This is very exciting. In the EU the fintech revolution is also banging the gates, as in 2018 all banks must support a standard protocol, if I recall correctly.
- bkkssnn 10y ago
  It's called Psd2, strugling to find a good article about it but TLDR; Banks has to have an open api for payments and to check account statuses.
  - ksahin 10y ago
    " Banks has to have an open api" are you sure about that ? I thought there was some criteria to be able to use these APIs
    - ozim 10y ago
      Yes but account owner or user will be able to give permission for access to his banking data. So you will be able to use your fav accounting app to fetch data directly from account without doing csv export or hacking something around.
      - ccozan 10y ago
        In Germany we have DATEV, which is a company doing exacly that.
        ksahin 10y ago
        In France we have "Bankin" and other apps, but the problem is, since banks don't offer APIs at all, all these apps (called "Aggregators" in fintech language) are doing web scraping to pull the user datas.
    - icebraining 10y ago
      I think the difference is that you can use the APIs of any bank as long as you fulfill some standard criteria; each bank can't set their own, or pick and choose who can "partner" with them to use the APIs. At least, that's my understanding.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - malanj 10y ago
    It's generally a "read only" view, i.e. you can get account info etc. Root is a "write" API. So you can actually create and modify transactions.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - bkkssnn 10y ago
      In the legislation banks has to provide a way to inititate transactions. So its not only to view data.
  - kiyundai 10y ago
    Didn't know that ! It may explain why french bank (like société générale) are starting to offer a way to check other french bank account from their mobile app/website
- sjtgraham 10y ago
  My company Teller, https://teller.io/ https://teller.io/ has transactional banking APIs with the UK banks in production today. It'll be coming out of beta soon and I'll do a Show HN at the time but feel free to shoot me any questions at sg@teller.io (don't want hijack Root's thread, awesome work folks!)
malanj 10y ago
Founder here - let me know if you have any questions! More details at https://root.co.za/ https://root.co.za/
- EtienneK 10y ago
  Fellow South African here. How do I get in on the closed beta?
  - malanj 10y ago
    You can sign up to the waiting list at https://root.co.za/ https://root.co.za/ We'll be sending more details to people on that list soon.
    - markatkinson 10y ago
      As a fintech developer super keen to get involved in this, and finally an excuse to learn Javascript. Fingers crossed.
- klaasvakie 10y ago
  Fellow saffer here. I signed up for your beta yesterday and I am quite excited, I think this has the potential to become an absolutely amazing product. As a developer, do you plan on having a market/app store where I can sell my "apps" to other root users?
  - malanj 10y ago
    Yes, it's definitely part of the plan. As you can imagine there are a few interesting security challenges etc to solve, but we're working hard on it.
- beaconstudios 10y ago
  hey, this sounds like a really interesting service! I have a question - why did you choose to go for hosted JavaScript instead of an API/webhooks combination?
bflesch 10y ago
Great idea, really like it. I really wonder why our overpaid German fintech ecosystem is unable to produce this kind of innovation? Is it because of too many regulations within the EU?
- afarrell 10y ago
  > overpaid German fintech ecosystem In what sense is the German fintech ecosystem overpaid? Don't you earn less than the UK and US?
  - bflesch 10y ago
    Maybe "overpaid" is the wrong term. I think that VC capital allocation in Berlin is skewed in favor of fintech investments, where most people are setting up some part of the banking ecosystem into their own app and most of them fail hard w/ product market fit even though they got great budgets compared to other b2c industries like eSports etc.
- ksahin 10y ago
  You mean why N26 doesn't do that already ?
  - bflesch 10y ago
    Yes, now that N26 is a bank they could allow us to create artificial IBAN and CC numbers so every one of my amazon/netflix accounts has their unique payment details. Apart from N26 and Wirecard most German fintech is bullshit talkers.
Slackwise 10y ago
I would love something like this for personal use, so I can share my bank account with my family and control their spending and behavior. I mean, assuming you can give out cards linked to said account, to discern who is using the account. That'd be incredibly useful. I used Google Wallet for this previously, and now use Simple, but it'd be nice to not have to approve requests and instead implement some logic to do so. If anyone working for Simple sees this: get on this! I'd move from my main bank account to entirely Simple just for this functionality.
- malanj 10y ago
  That'll actually be one of the key use-cases for Root I think. E.g. We've had people who want a card for their spouse, and then whenever one of them spends money, it alerts the other one so that they can sync budgets.
  - Slackwise 10y ago
    That's awesome! I just wish I could use Root then, with a state-side available bank.
jimmies 10y ago
This is an awesome idea. The only thing I log in to my account is to literally run this in my head a couple of times a month. I usually have a couple of active credit cards with different due dates on them so this is at least annoying to keep track of. safe_margin = rent + food + 500 emergency_fund_bal = monthly_salary * 3 // pay all credit cards if I can sort(my_credit_cards, apr) for (cc in my_credit_cards) { if (cc.statement_bal == 0 || cc.paid) skip if (checking.bal - cc.statement_bal - safe_margin >= 0) { pay(to=cc, from=checking, amount=cc.statement_bal); cc.paid = 1 } else if (checking.balance > cc.min_pay) { pay(to=cc, from=checking, amount=cc.min_pay) } } // refill the emergency funds if needed and can if (savings.bal < emergency_fund_bal && checking.bal > safe_margin) { transfer(from=checking, to=checking, amount=min( emergency_fund_bal - savings.bal, checking.bal - safe_margin) ) } // invest the rest if (checking.bal > safe_margin) { invest(checking.bal - safe_margin) }
- hdhzy 10y ago
  Glad I'm not the only one that'd be happy to have a proper api for their bank. In Europe to upcoming PSD2 directive basically requires banks to expose the api. In the mean time I'm abusing JSON/HTTP api my bank has built for their own RWD app...
glitchfreak 10y ago
Awesome concept!! I've signed up for the beta and having worked for SBSA, I'm proud that they're on the forefront of some this with this potential. I'm keen to see what sort of use cases people come up with.
hoektoe 10y ago
AWESOME , nice to South Africans

123 points by tefo-mohapi 10y ago

This is very exciting. In the EU the fintech revolution is also banging the gates, as in 2018 all banks must support a standard protocol, if I recall correctly.

bkkssnn 10y ago
It's called Psd2, strugling to find a good article about it but TLDR; Banks has to have an open api for payments and to check account statuses.
- ksahin 10y ago
  " Banks has to have an open api" are you sure about that ? I thought there was some criteria to be able to use these APIs
  - ozim 10y ago
    Yes but account owner or user will be able to give permission for access to his banking data. So you will be able to use your fav accounting app to fetch data directly from account without doing csv export or hacking something around.
    - ccozan 10y ago
      In Germany we have DATEV, which is a company doing exacly that.
      - ksahin 10y ago
        In France we have "Bankin" and other apps, but the problem is, since banks don't offer APIs at all, all these apps (called "Aggregators" in fintech language) are doing web scraping to pull the user datas.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    I think the difference is that you can use the APIs of any bank as long as you fulfill some standard criteria; each bank can't set their own, or pick and choose who can "partner" with them to use the APIs. At least, that's my understanding.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- malanj 10y ago
  It's generally a "read only" view, i.e. you can get account info etc. Root is a "write" API. So you can actually create and modify transactions.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - bkkssnn 10y ago
    In the legislation banks has to provide a way to inititate transactions. So its not only to view data.
- kiyundai 10y ago
  Didn't know that ! It may explain why french bank (like société générale) are starting to offer a way to check other french bank account from their mobile app/website
sjtgraham 10y ago
My company Teller, https://teller.io/ https://teller.io/ has transactional banking APIs with the UK banks in production today. It'll be coming out of beta soon and I'll do a Show HN at the time but feel free to shoot me any questions at sg@teller.io (don't want hijack Root's thread, awesome work folks!)

malanj 10y ago

Founder here - let me know if you have any questions! More details at https://root.co.za/ https://root.co.za/

EtienneK 10y ago
Fellow South African here. How do I get in on the closed beta?
- malanj 10y ago
  You can sign up to the waiting list at https://root.co.za/ https://root.co.za/ We'll be sending more details to people on that list soon.
  - markatkinson 10y ago
    As a fintech developer super keen to get involved in this, and finally an excuse to learn Javascript. Fingers crossed.
klaasvakie 10y ago
Fellow saffer here. I signed up for your beta yesterday and I am quite excited, I think this has the potential to become an absolutely amazing product. As a developer, do you plan on having a market/app store where I can sell my "apps" to other root users?
- malanj 10y ago
  Yes, it's definitely part of the plan. As you can imagine there are a few interesting security challenges etc to solve, but we're working hard on it.
beaconstudios 10y ago
hey, this sounds like a really interesting service! I have a question - why did you choose to go for hosted JavaScript instead of an API/webhooks combination?

bflesch 10y ago

Great idea, really like it. I really wonder why our overpaid German fintech ecosystem is unable to produce this kind of innovation? Is it because of too many regulations within the EU?

afarrell 10y ago
> overpaid German fintech ecosystem In what sense is the German fintech ecosystem overpaid? Don't you earn less than the UK and US?
- bflesch 10y ago
  Maybe "overpaid" is the wrong term. I think that VC capital allocation in Berlin is skewed in favor of fintech investments, where most people are setting up some part of the banking ecosystem into their own app and most of them fail hard w/ product market fit even though they got great budgets compared to other b2c industries like eSports etc.
ksahin 10y ago
You mean why N26 doesn't do that already ?
- bflesch 10y ago
  Yes, now that N26 is a bank they could allow us to create artificial IBAN and CC numbers so every one of my amazon/netflix accounts has their unique payment details. Apart from N26 and Wirecard most German fintech is bullshit talkers.

Slackwise 10y ago

I would love something like this for personal use, so I can share my bank account with my family and control their spending and behavior. I mean, assuming you can give out cards linked to said account, to discern who is using the account. That'd be incredibly useful. I used Google Wallet for this previously, and now use Simple, but it'd be nice to not have to approve requests and instead implement some logic to do so. If anyone working for Simple sees this: get on this! I'd move from my main bank account to entirely Simple just for this functionality.

malanj 10y ago
That'll actually be one of the key use-cases for Root I think. E.g. We've had people who want a card for their spouse, and then whenever one of them spends money, it alerts the other one so that they can sync budgets.
- Slackwise 10y ago
  That's awesome! I just wish I could use Root then, with a state-side available bank.

jimmies 10y ago

This is an awesome idea. The only thing I log in to my account is to literally run this in my head a couple of times a month. I usually have a couple of active credit cards with different due dates on them so this is at least annoying to keep track of. safe_margin = rent + food + 500 emergency_fund_bal = monthly_salary * 3 // pay all credit cards if I can sort(my_credit_cards, apr) for (cc in my_credit_cards) { if (cc.statement_bal == 0 || cc.paid) skip if (checking.bal - cc.statement_bal - safe_margin >= 0) { pay(to=cc, from=checking, amount=cc.statement_bal); cc.paid = 1 } else if (checking.balance > cc.min_pay) { pay(to=cc, from=checking, amount=cc.min_pay) } } // refill the emergency funds if needed and can if (savings.bal < emergency_fund_bal && checking.bal > safe_margin) { transfer(from=checking, to=checking, amount=min( emergency_fund_bal - savings.bal, checking.bal - safe_margin) ) } // invest the rest if (checking.bal > safe_margin) { invest(checking.bal - safe_margin) }

hdhzy 10y ago
Glad I'm not the only one that'd be happy to have a proper api for their bank. In Europe to upcoming PSD2 directive basically requires banks to expose the api. In the mean time I'm abusing JSON/HTTP api my bank has built for their own RWD app...

glitchfreak 10y ago

Awesome concept!! I've signed up for the beta and having worked for SBSA, I'm proud that they're on the forefront of some this with this potential. I'm keen to see what sort of use cases people come up with.

hoektoe 10y ago

AWESOME , nice to South Africans