27 ms·

Root – Programmable bank account for software developers

1015 points by s_dev 9y ago

apostacy 9y ago
When can I have direct control of recurring payments? I want to be able to "push" money instead of having it "pulled" from my account. This is a totally reasonable feature. If a merchant wants assurance that they will be paid, they should charge a deposit. The closest I've had is Entropay, but I don't really trust them for large payments. Recurring payments are so abused, I can't count how many times I have been mislead. And there is a strong financial incentive to mislead people. And having to contact my credit card company after the fact is not good enough.
- wppick 9y ago
  I think most bank's, websites already allow for this. Look under payees or pay bills
  - cookiecaper 9y ago
    In my experience, this is only the case if you set up the payment through the bank's automatic payment system, which typically uses paper checks (but may do an electronic deposit for some payees who have specially registered). Most subscription-based businesses that go to your bank account get an authorization to do an "ACH pull". In some instances, this authorization alone can act as collateral (e.g., in securing payday loans or medical payment agreements). As such, I would assume that allowing consumers to revoke the authorization is more problematic than it sounds.
    - crispytx 9y ago
      That's right, the banks often send paper checks. Automatic bill pay is shit.
- louwhopley 9y ago
  Hey (founder of Root here), our platform gives you full API access to, for instance, do any of the things you do on the normal banking interface through code - like initiating a transfer to someone else, or building your own recurring payments system using a simple cron job :)
  - apostacy 9y ago
    I will check it out. I would love to be able to script my bank. Chase.com is an ongoing battle. There are plenty of projects to automate banking, but it's an uphill battle. I'm sure if I had a business account, I'd have more access than what the browser gives me. I would love to be able to do things like, see what payments are flagged as recurring, and group them together, and sum them.
  - programbreeding 9y ago
    I believe what apostacy meant was the ability to prevent a recurring payment from occurring without approval. I may have misunderstood what they meant but something along the lines of: a debit shows up in your account as pending, and you have X amount of time to approve or decline it. That way you are preventing a debit from even occurring in the first place, rather than having to fight your bank to get the money back.
    - apostacy 9y ago
      What I basically want, is to have more control. I want a similar amount of control as to what I have with paper money, or even virtual in game currencies. Right now, the scale is not tipped in my favor. I would be happy to pay for it. I understand that banks have reasons for things to be arraigned the way they are. I would love to have a "personal firewall" level of control over my money. I'd like to see that Widget of the month club is requesting $50, and I can confirm/deny it. I only signed up for a widget of the month because it seemed like a good idea, but they deceived me into thinking I could back out at any time, and then when I cancelled my account, they just "paused" it for three months. We don't use the "banking" model for other resources that are supposed to be our property. An app on my phone isn't supposed to be able to delete my photos, and the accepted solution is not that I call some external entity to undelete them. I know that these examples are very different, but that is what I would like. I can also simply block someone from contacting me if I want, without having to justify it to my isp. I want to be able to do that with my money. If someone disagrees with me doing this, and thinks I still owe them money, they can be free to sue me, or do some other sanctions. Right now, I create virtual credit cards and only fund them enough to pay my recurring payments. I want to automate it. 95% of the time, recurring payments that fail for me are done in bad faith, and these actors will not make a fuss if they can't process their payments. I know this is probably a pipe dream, and that there are already system I can use, and that our financial system is set up the way it is for reasons. But that's a pain point for me, and a lot of people. People would like to be empowered, and feel that they have control. I think, in the end, things won't really change. Most people will still pay legitimate charges.
- crispytx 9y ago
  Great idea. I hate the current system where companies can get access to your bank account and pull money out at will.
- SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago
  In the UK this is known as a "standing order". The account holder is fully in control of how much money goes out and when. Is this not the case in other places?
  - ldrndll 9y ago
    In South Africa we have stop orders and debit orders. Stop orders are for an amount agreed in advance. Debit orders allow the payee to debit your account for whatever amount they choose, obviously with the proviso that they have to produce evidence that you agreed to this, and that they can justify the charge. I've heard some stories about people having issues with unscrupulous payees abusing this, but I believe that's rare. I, for example, pay for my mortgage, credit card, cellphone, satellite TV, etc. via debit order.
- moftz 9y ago
  I wish I could just have the ability to create virtual credit card numbers. I would be able to fill it with a certain balance, set up recurring balance refills, change the expiration date, keep a merchant whitelist, and cancel the number at any time. This gives me the opportunity to make sure that even if my card number was stolen or abused, the charge won't go through. If I sign up for a free trial or a service I only want for x months but need a card on record, I give them a virtual number and set the card up to cancel itself after the period is up. Or if I want to put all my netflix, hulu, pandora, etc charges on one number, I can set a monthly allowance for each merchant. If someone changes their prices, the charge gets declined and I can go back and reup the limit if I want.
  - apostacy 9y ago
    I use entropay.com, which lets you create virtual credit cards, and pre-charge them. And if the account runs out of money, the transaction is declined, and the merchant has no way to get your money after that. As a warning, there are some problems with entropay.com though. Over the last year, some merchants have been able to detect that entropay.com virtual credit cards are prepaid, and require a plastic card. Also, entropy cards are from Malta, so companies like Spotify or Netflix will only give you access to content licensed there. Finally, and most importantly, entropay.com has a tendency to "float" your money, and I've heard that sometimes they just snatch it. I've never dealt with more than $150 at a time. Since they are based in Malta, I think it would be very hard to dispute anything with them. But if you have to do any bigger transactions, you should use a bank here anyway. But it's great for trying out services where you don't trust them, or are just concerned with overages. I use them as a buffer for a lot of recurring payments. I've seen some services on hackernews that offer virtual credit cards, but the problem is, that they all are tied to some underlying checking account, and even if the prepaid balance is declined, the company is obligated to somehow collect the money, if they can. There's no way to simply cancel a recurring payment. I'm sure that this is because they are required to by banks in the US. I really wanted to have a complex money firewall, like you describe, but in practice, I've ended up just using plain old credit cards for most things. It is still very good to have an entropay account, though.
    - 9y ago
- mavidser 9y ago
  Exactly. I always imagined a future where there would be an oAuth scopes like gateway for banks. Something like - This website requires the following permission: [x] Monthly recurring payments of $20 [o] Automatically get the payments [ ] Send me the link to deposit every month > Proceed > Cancel Life would have been so simpler then (Obviously I haven't thought this through completely, but something similar to this with proper security would be far superior than our current model of Name + Credit card number + CVV).
  - kuschku 9y ago
    Well, this is a thing in the EU. You usually pay via SEPA recurring transfers, and just authorize a company to take $n money monthly (and can easily revoke). Or you set up an automated recurring transaction to transmit that much money. Or you allow a company to take just any amount, at any time, but you can revoke each transfer. This last is how you usually connect debit cards, credit cards, Amazon, PayPal, to your account.
    - defined 9y ago
      I developed a serious allergy to what were called "debit orders" when I used to live outside the USA many years ago. You would sign a form to allow the merchant to debit your bank account every month for (say) a subscription. Cancellation was theoretically possible by calling or mailing the merchant, but too many times, an extra payment (or two, or three...) went through and it was hell to get the money back. The banks were not much help - you would have to try to get the debit reversed, and it was no fun. I think I had a few similar experiences here in the USA, but I can't recall specifics. Now I pay everything in "push" mode via online banking, as silly as that may seem. I hope things like SEPA work better at revocation than what I experienced back in the day!
bbno4 9y ago
How is this different from Monzo?
- tyingq 9y ago
  South Africa vs UK.
- esMazer 9y ago
  I don't see any mention on Monzo's page about having an API. EDIT: Found a blog post about it! https://monzo.com/blog/2016/02/03/mondo-api/ https://monzo.com/blog/2016/02/03/mondo-api/ cool!
  - colinramsay 9y ago
    https://monzo.com/docs/ https://monzo.com/docs/
  - fastball 9y ago
    https://monzo.com/docs/ https://monzo.com/docs/ ??
    - esMazer 9y ago
      yep found it: https://developers.monzo.com/ https://developers.monzo.com/
- fastball 9y ago
  Looks like it's a more complete API, with methods to change/approve/reject transactions as they happen, rather than more of a record API. For instance, with the reference to a "programmable card". I'm not sure exactly what that means, but it sounds like a feature Monzo doesn't have.
- sly010 9y ago
  It's in South Africa.
- haftrine 9y ago
baconomatic 9y ago
This will be interesting to watch. I'm hoping they have sandbox accounts!
- louwhopley 9y ago
  Hey @baconomatic, founder here - we do have a sandbox built in so that you can test your scripts/programs first before running letting it touch your real money :)
  - davidpelaez 9y ago
    Would it be possible to get an account for playing in the sandbox without living in South Africa?
  - baconomatic 9y ago
    Awesome! I was half kidding, because I would definitely have a typo and send my money who knows where.
- kzisme 9y ago
  This was my thought too hah! "Opps...wrong command there goes one paycheck"
  - louwhopley 9y ago
    Ha! Yeah, we've built in some things to prevent that type of user error :)
    - kzisme 9y ago
      I figured as such :) looks neat - although I think businesses would benefit more than a normal consumer would by making use of it.
artursapek 9y ago
I wish brokerages/banks had APIs, even just for reading. I've tried just reading my Fidelity transactions with a script and they seem to have blocked my server.
- medmunds 9y ago
  You might check into the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Financial_Exchange https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Financial_Exchange format. Software like Quicken is able to download transactions from several banks and brokerages using it. (I don't know what's involved in getting access to its endpoints, though.)
  - curryhowardiso 9y ago
    > Microsoft, Intuit and CheckFree announced the OFX standard on 16 January 1997. > Many banks in the US let customers use personal financial management software to automatically download their bank statements in OFX format, but most Canadian,[2][3][4] United Kingdom and Australian (CBA exports OFX and QIF files) banks do not allow this. I'm not criticizing - we need to do better! Developers demand JSON!!! :)
egeozcan 9y ago
I'd like to have something like this for Germany. I am willing to pay 10€/month for a simple API access to my bank account. I need neither hosted code nor push. Just give me remote access for my scripts. Probably I'm asking for the impossible because of the heavy regulation in Germany but just wanted to put it out there.
- 1ba9115454 9y ago
  Have you thought about using a headless browser or web scraping?
  - egeozcan 9y ago
    A friend of mine did this but after two times web access being disabled for his account because "suspicious activity" he stopped. Second time he actually tried very hard to simulate a human with delays, user-agent, browser capabilities and so on but didn't help.
    - ic4l 9y ago
      This is getting harder and harder. Chrome allows you to do a .click but it also sends a tainted flag. I'm not sure if headless browses also send non-tainted events.
- duozerk 9y ago
  You can simulate a browser and act as if you're a normal, browser using customer. Encapsulate it and you've got an "API"; though it'll be a bit painful as a lot of banks' web backends are fucked up and you'll need to keep up to date with their changes, but still. I did it for my French bank account at one point (get balance + submit transfer).
  - nickpsecurity 9y ago
    Your comment might be the first I've seen justifying the use of Electron. ;)
  - 9y ago
tarr11 9y ago
What problem does this attempt to solve? Their slack example doesn't seem particularly pressing.
- 1ba9115454 9y ago
  It might be useful for businesses that wish to API control over their money.
  - andy_ppp 9y ago
    Yes exactly. Paying invoices, CRM systems, Taxation etc. The list of uses is almost endless for businesses.
- louwhopley 9y ago
  Hey @tarr11, founder here. We're trying to make banking more accessible to creators/developers so that they can build their own problem solving solutions :)
  - davidpelaez 9y ago
    This is amazing. Are you on twitter or some other place I can find you and talk?
- Sean1708 9y ago
  What about the Uber example? That's seem pretty cool. But I think the problem it's attempting to solve is that without Root a bank must implement any kind of features that you may want, Root you allows you to implement any features you want. Although I can't decide whether this is an amazing thing, or a terrible terrible thing.
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    > What about the Uber example? That's seem pretty cool. edit: I didn't see the Uber example, so I was working off an incorrect premise. It actually makes sense. How would that work in real life? Uber doesn't charge you before your ride is complete, and at that point your payment would bounce, and now you're in trouble. Ditto for fast-food diet; nobody's going to be happy when you walk up to the counter at 16 Handles with your big bucket of ice cream and your card doesn't go through. I suppose the idea is to keep all of this in mind, but it still seems odd. But you're right - someone will come up with an interesting use case for it. (My first idea was a card for my kid, so they can only make $10 worth of in-game purchases a month.)
neuralFatigue 9y ago
I wonder if they'll get a C & D over 'Erlich Bachman' .
- ChicagoBoy11 9y ago
  What is this referring to? Like, where is there a reference to SV on their site?
  - d3fr4gm3nt 9y ago
    The right top corner of the user interface screenshot has the user name.
cryptarch 9y ago
In the EU this is soon going to be solved by the PSD2 system. Coming in November 2018 or later, depending on how soon the regulations are finalized. It's a mandatory-to-implement protocol, which will allow consumers to give 1st and 3rd parties API access to their bank accounts.
- JustSomeNobody 9y ago
  What protections are in place so that third party doesn't have a glitch and take all a person's money?
  - Tharkun 9y ago
    The same protections that are in place to access bank accounts right now. Strong authentication being the most obvious one.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
madamelic 9y ago
Is this South Africa only? Any plans on coming to the US? :)
- louwhopley 9y ago
  yes, and yes ;) (but not immediately)
djm_ 9y ago
If anyone's looking for API access to UK high street banks: https://teller.io https://teller.io
- sjtgraham 9y ago
  Thanks! Founder here. Currently in private beta, but if you're with Santander, Nationwide, RBS, Natwest, Ulster Bank NI, or IOM Bank I can give you access - sg@teller.io.
  - bjackman 9y ago
    Have you integrated this directly with the banks or do you take user's login details and scrape the online banking sites (like MoneyDashboard does)? I would be more than willing to switch banks just to get a read-only API for this kind of thing, if only it was properly integrated (read: I don't have to give my login details to a third party)
    - sjtgraham 9y ago
      Teller uses the APIs used by the bank's own mobile app, i.e. they have been reverse-engineered. Whether Teller requires personal credentials is dependent on the bank's implementation. Barclays (integration temporarily unavailable), and Nationwide use EMV CAP (the card reader) for registration. If we can figure out a way to not take user credentials, we will always take that route. I recommend Starling and Monzo if you want a read-only API for your own account, but if you want to build apps for 65 million customers they're not yet much use to you.
      - bjackman 9y ago
        Cool, thanks for the info. It's such a shame we have to resort to (slightly) compromising on security & reliability to make banking work for consumers. Do you think there's a future where there's a standard API that banks expose for authorised apps to get at customer data?
    - jsudhams 9y ago
glitchfreak 9y ago
Any idea when this will launch in beta? Really keen to try it out.
s_dev 9y ago
People asking about what problem this solves haven't been to South Africa or Zimbabwe which in some ways are ahead of the West in creating cashless societies. The biggest bank is a phone operator and people can send each other money over the phone and from what I understand this is very common. Also interestingly most phones aren't smart phones. It's mostly analog. Banks have a serious incentive to create and encourage cashless societies -- because they're limited by the liquidity ratio. People there are more skeptical of hard cash there while here it's nearly on par with Gold in terms of confidence. I don't think I've to explain offering an API allows third party engagement and endorsement and an opportunity for others to grow their service. Yes there are security concerns but these can be all secured from backend.
- jsudhams 9y ago
  One of the issue with cashless is that banks/financial service provided making money of of the money i.e. $100 making more than $100 with out adding any real value in fees (100 time circulation). I know time is money in most western countries but my place we do one crop a year and sit idle for 9 months. So time is not a money and we would rather give cash to a person get that much worth of a product. E.g. My sons school charges 2% extra if i use credit card, Rs 20 if i use netbank and does not accept cash. So on a Saturday i am happy pay in cash when i have nothing else to do. Unless government makes the transfer without fee (now they can print less money and that cost can be used for this infra of transfer), why is cashless better in the scenario where that saved time is not used for anything value generating? Genuinely looking for answers to this that makes sense rather than saying time is money.
  - hasbroslasher 9y ago
    The example of your son's school is fine, but imagine that your son lives in another country. Cash has other problems beside being slow. It's insecure - a person could steal your $20 bill from your mailbox or his, or from the Post Office. It's untraceable - if your son's school says "We never got your payment" but your son swears he gave them the cash, you're stuck in a situation where either your son or the school is ripping you off (I'm sure your son would never do that). And last, it takes both time and money to convert cash to another currency. Taking the cash to somewhere where a person can convert it to the preferred currency is bad enough, and then it costs you money on top of it.
jurandom 9y ago
Cool. I see parallels with Ethereum here. How complex can the rules be? Could you have smart contract functionality?
- louwhopley 9y ago
  The rules can be as complex as the code you can write. It effectively sends a webhook on which you can respond "decline" to stop the tx from succeeding. (RootCode also packages this concept to make it quicker to prototype)
  - lightbyte 9y ago
    Is there a timeout for approving/declining transactions? I'd be interested in setting up a sort of 2FA for large/over budget transactions where I'd have to manually approve it before it goes through. e.g. "You've already spent over your monthly Amazon budget by X amount, are you sure you want to make this $200 purchase?"
bongonewhere 9y ago
Hi All, If you are interested in talking to the devs they can be found in #root on zatech slack group For invites check https://zatech.github.io/site/ https://zatech.github.io/site/ disclaimer: Not a root dev just a user on the zatech slack group
- louwhopley 9y ago
  Thanks bongonewhere :) I'm also on here to answer some Q's
louwhopley 9y ago
Founder here :) Feel free to ask me any questions
- needz 9y ago
  Any plans to back this with a blockchain of any kind?
  - ska 9y ago
    I'm curious, to what end?
    - needz 9y ago
      As an extension to customizing your bank account. It'd be nice to be able to pull funds from cryptocoin accounts or make calls to smart contracts, etc. I'm thinking this could be the IFTTT of bank accounts, so I want to see as many connections as possible.
      - ska 9y ago
        Well that makes sense, but not what I would call "backing it". I think the terminology confused me, integrating other accounts, etc. is a clearer target.
  - louwhopley 9y ago
    We're currently playing in the fiat currency space, but we are keeping an eye out for ways to merge the two
    - louwhopley 9y ago
      One beta user built a script that sells bitcoin in real-time as he swipes his card and tops up his fiat account, effectively making his card "spend bitcoin" :)
      - 9y ago
fixxer 9y ago
As someone who doesn't want to share my creds with Mint or rummage through GNU Cash to write my own solution, this looks like a great idea. I'd love to build a consolidated dashboard for my networth with APIs like this.
IMTDb 9y ago
Is this US only or available anywhere (Belgian inside)
t3po7re5 9y ago
As someone who works at a credit card company Transaction data usually doesn't look that clean. But this is a cool concept, looking forward to ideas that are implemented!
solidsalvia 9y ago
Wells Fargo is introducing an API for small businesses last I heard. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/its-bonkers-that-banks-dont-provide-apis-wells-fargo-xero https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/its-bonkers-that-...
edw519 9y ago
Root is a lightweight bank account designed to be accessible through code. Wait, what? Code you write yourself? Sounds like they may have accidentally provided the perfect solution to different problem: technical recruiting and screening. No more technical interviews. If your code doesn't work, you don't get your money. Woo hoo, problem solved.
KirinDave 9y ago
This is the sort of thing American banks just can't do at scale. Which is probably a good thing, to be honest.
- mcherm 9y ago
  Don't bet on that.
  - KirinDave 9y ago
    I mean, I did and I got a lot of money from betting on that. I'm post exit on precisely that bet, and were I not so incredibly tired of fintech I'd bet again. Many national American banks are toxically opposed to actual modernization, for a variety of reasons. Their classical "enterprise" beliefs on security put all the banks I've talked to well behind the curve. But also, I want to avoid a scenario where the US is a principle innovator in technology and also in finance.
    - mcherm 9y ago
      > Many national American banks are toxically opposed to actual modernization, for a variety of reasons. That is true of many, but not of all. I work for a US bank of national scope that IS working hard to achieve actual modernization.
      - KirinDave 9y ago
        I'm almost certain I know who you work for, and if I'm right I'm contractually obligated to end the conversation here. Good luck.
- Tharkun 9y ago
  Not entirely sure why you were downvoted. American banks are pretty horrible from a technology point of view. I've dealt with a couple of US banks, and they're still very much stuck in the "paper cheque"-era, with no desire to do anything about it.
- 9y ago
hoschicz 9y ago
I've sent them an email asking them if they are planning to be SAR-only, here's the reply: Hi Ondřej, We're launching in South Africa, but have plans to expand to the EU/US in the near future. Be sure to sign up to our waiting list, as we'll keep everyone there posted on new events :)
- louwhopley 9y ago
  Haha :)
- yaur 9y ago
  Very interested in this when you come to the US as long as it has a reasonable fee structure.
fazkan 9y ago
Finally, have been waiting for this for a long time now.
musikele 9y ago
In Italy there is a similar solution, more targetized to ventures and companies: http://platfr.io http://platfr.io
matdehaast 9y ago
Hey, @louwhopley. So cool to see this project on HN! Signed up for your early access a few weeks ago and hope to get access soon. I think there is a lot of opportunities still within Africa for the informal sector with technology. However, the FICA guidelines make it quite difficult to operate in this space. Do you see a future where we can service this sector better whilst still be compliant?
- louwhopley 9y ago
  That's part of our mission :)
cosinetau 9y ago
That's a legit name.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
crispytx 9y ago
Does anybody know anything about the company behind this, OfferZen?
- reviseddamage 9y ago
  this is the main challenge startups in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia will face when trying to launch financial service alternatives; Fear and distrust of the young and unknown and subservient loyalty to the mature and known.
  - crispytx 9y ago
    Haha, no I don't distrust them. I want to invest when they go public!
- matdehaast 9y ago
  Yeah OfferZen is the localised version of Hired in South Africa
EGreg 9y ago
Finally! Can I write scripts to for example trade some stuff for bitcoin, pay people etc.
matt_wulfeck 9y ago
Does anyone know how much data is offered on the retailers where money is spent? This is important. I'd like to easily classify and organize purchases similar to mint without having to hand all of my data over to a third party.
deleted 9y ago
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Kinnard 9y ago
Might be confused with Rootstock: https://medium.com/@CryptoIQ.ca/rootstock-smart-contracts-on-the-bitcoin-blockchain-e52b065421a8 https://medium.com/@CryptoIQ.ca/rootstock-smart-contracts-on... It's a blockchain programming layer aiming to implement Ethereum's virtual machine on top of Bitcoin's blockchain . . . programmable bitcoin accounts . . .
jacksnipe 9y ago
At first I was wondering what I could possibly use this for, but as I sat and thought about it, I realized the possibilities are enormous. I'd like to know if the following are possible: 1. Forcing me to stay on budget, unless there's an emergency (perhaps allow purchases over budget after the third attempt). 2. Automatically distribute paychecks or other income into different accounts (some to retirement, some to savings, some to checking, w/e...); this behavior could change based on the current distribution of your money too, so if your "emergency fund" got really low you could automatically spend more of your income replenishing it. 3. Deny unwanted transactions and tightly control your own fraud detection (SMS confirmation for every purchase out of your zip code, confirmations for purchases from new places, you name it...). 4. Automate the creation and destruction of virtual cards to minimize danger of online purchases or to make sure that "free trial" never starts charging you. I'm sure there's tons of other awesome ideas, but I want all of these quite badly.
- pdelbarba 9y ago
  I really like all of this. In particular I wish there was a way of setting your own fraud prevention constraints instead of having the bank try and figure out what your patterns are. I assume they don't because they're afraid of Average Joe disabling everything because they're annoyed and know the card company will reimburse it all anyway.
  - hart_russell 9y ago
    I had someone buy $200 worth of jeans 800 miles away from my home a few months ago... for some reason Visa did not find that suspicious. I was smart enough to thoroughly read my statement that month and dispute that charge.
    - hetspookjee 9y ago
      In all honesty, that sounds reasonable for a holiday purchase.
      - 9y ago
grandalf 9y ago
This is very clever. I'd like to be able to "guard" my account by declining certain transactions, even if I made them willingly or agreed to have them scheduled.
spanishgum 9y ago
I wonder if anyone would ever be willing to link this up to a personal website and publicly display all transactions live. That would take transparency to a whole new level. Call me crazy but I feel compelled.
swalsh 9y ago
I think the power of this is potentially not the apps I'll write for myself, but the apps other people write. Without knowing anything about it, this might potentially allow people to do the 100 things that would be nice, but didn't quite provide enough value to justify building the underlying infrastructure. I think you can compare it to going back to 1993, and wanting to build Yelp, but having to invent, and sell the phone to go along with it. This could be huge.
Meekro 9y ago
Anyone remember Seed[1], the YC startup that tried to do programmable bank accounts years ago? They did eventually launch, and I have an account, but all the programmable stuff went away and we're left with basic business bank accounts rather than the original vision. I wonder what happened there, and I hope Root can better stay on track! [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9066363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9066363
- btmerr 9y ago
  Hey there. I'm Brian, the CEO of Seed. Thanks for remembering us and thank you for trying us out. :) Long story short, we're still working on making the API available to our members. Plans changed along the way and we ended up releasing our mobile business bank account first, but our long term goal of offering a more open platform remains. It's tough to do anything innovative within the US banking system due to regulations, partner challenges, risk, and other factors, but we're going to keep working at it.
  - Meekro 9y ago
    Hey Brian, I'm glad to hear that you guys are still at it! Your original vision is exactly what I wanted. We got an account for our small business because paying contractors with a monthly cron job that initiates an ACH transfer is exactly the kind of nerdy thing we want to do. We're using it, and waiting for the API to come along. I hope you guys succeed! Not many startup founders look at the tangled mess of regulations that is the financial sector and think, "now that's where I want to be!"
coding123 9y ago
Going a little beyond, why not offer this to ANYONE. So once a lot of developers create a bunch of apps, people that are not developers can browse apps that have special integrations that are important for those people. I get they want to attract developers right now however.
jboggan 9y ago
I can't wait to have race conditions in my bank account! But seriously, this looks really interesting, sign me up.
brilliantcode 9y ago
> Powered by Standard Bank South Africa Doesn't give me much confidence. Allgedly hacked & involved in a fraud case [1] [2] [1] http://city-press.news24.com/Business/standard-bank-r300m-fraud-case-linked-to-hacking-20160701 http://city-press.news24.com/Business/standard-bank-r300m-fr... [2] https://businesstech.co.za/news/mobile/170629/major-sa-banks-taken-to-court-over-internet-fraud/ https://businesstech.co.za/news/mobile/170629/major-sa-banks...
- lalitkale 9y ago
  In addition to that you can observe that their website's certificate details. it seems they are using fee ssl provided from cloudfare. Not really a confidence booster and definitely not even close to fintech security which we can trust. Mastercard logo is displayed without any hint that they are official partner of visa or mastercard. The said bank and offerzen site does not have links etc. There is no documentation or hints about legal disputes resolution or any kind of compliance mechanism ever mentioned on site. Though I like the concept, will hold off still I get to know that the site is genuine.
newintellectual 9y ago
Ok. So why wouldn't this be a black-hat hacker's version of heaven? Writing Javascript scripts that touch my bank account directly must be the bulls-eye target of all bulls-eyes. What's the security model?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
theprop 9y ago
Hmmm...it's very unlikely that everyone who will open a "Root" account will write their own apps to control their account. So the idea is that any developer can create a "Root" app for my "Root" bank account...and then sell my data, get hacked, start transferring my money without my knowing it?!
kusmi 9y ago
Sounds like it would be neat to use this for a business account. Just need a corporate accountant chatbot.
archeantus 9y ago
This looks amazing. I actually spent several months making an awesome Mint killer. The only problem was getting access to bank data that wasn't crazy expensive. If this pans out, I've got a beautiful app ready to roll! Anyone want to help out?
- curryhowardiso 9y ago
  Have you seen plaid.com? Also - yes :)
33W 9y ago
What considerations do persons in the US need to take into account before opening a foreign bank account?
nodesocket 9y ago
This looks incredibly awesome. A few questions though. 1.) Can I open a business account? 2.) FDIC insured? 3.) Out of South Africa makes me very nervous. What protections/assurances are offered for US customers? Reminds me of when I first saw /dev/payments (Stripe) launch. Great potential.
ic4l 9y ago
Are there any US banks that offer such a credit card api at the transaction level where you can reject within XX seconds? Been looking for something like this forever, or is there a way to partner with a bank for less than $1m to do such a thing?
AnsemWise 9y ago
This is fantastic, I've been thinking about this for years. Allow your code to exert willpower over your budget when your's is lacking
Charliecf 9y ago
Very interesting concept... this kind of accessibility opens a lot of possibilities For example: simple things like better tracking my budgets or pulling transaction history. I have a pain doing that from my banks who gives me PDF or only goes back 6 months of data
Nalta 9y ago
I really really do not want the ability to write bugs in my bank account.
marcosbeirig 9y ago
> Extend your account by building new features and integrating with other services using our securely hosted JavaScript code. Your current balance is: NaN
- undefinedblog 9y ago
  which is a 'number' LOL
cstrat 9y ago
This is something I have wished banks would one day provide! Aussie banks might one day catch on. Love to read a write up in 6 months from someone who has played around and got this working. See how useful it really is.
hbk1966 9y ago
The more I think about this the more brilliant it becomes.
duke360 9y ago
i think this is great! i want an account there!
rkv 9y ago
Since the very beginning of online banking I've wanted two things: IP whitelisting and a master switch to enable/disable withdrawals. I've settled for 2FA but even top banks in Canada are still not offering it. I work in security and have witnessed some extremely well-crafted endpoint malware that can intercept banking sessions.
mikorym 9y ago
I find it interesting that this comments section has become as proudly South African as Stellenbosch Sauvignon Blanc. I don't even need to read whatever the API (or legislation) says to understand how we got to this.opportunity. My little experience on any topics of any importance tell me that maybe there should be a little context to this whole thing. So, let me make some pseudorandom comments that may be of use to all the shadow followers here. South Africa is the Best Country in the World ®. They are ahead in nature conservation (nr 1). They have wide open spaces (you can hide from belligerents through obscurity). They have extreme safety. As in, you're either very safe, or very unsafe. And the difference could be a couple of seconds. They even have Very Good Universities ®. Finally, they have fertile opportunities, since the rest of Africa is pretty broken (except maybe some of the neighbours who are pretty not broken). But the core issue here, just like at every previous timestamp, is politics. There is a big philosophical battle raging that is based on concepts such as "I was here first", "I claimed this first", "We are all African, except you", "I am the sharpest pencil", "Everybody deserves a certificate", "I am actually building something", "Take away all the buildings" and then, the most popular one, which is: "I also want some spears". Anyway, the point is the following. Banks are kinda evil, while banks in SA seems to try to be not evil, except when they don't. This is a complicated thing. Just as complicated as Zuma & Ramaphosa, inc. There are also people who already have spears that like to poke things. Now, the everybody deserves a certificate thing is not such a good idea. (Ask Mark Shuttleworth). But if one notices, when it comes to tech, South Africa has always been rather bright. Solar panels, batteries, pretty aircraft, etc etc. Anyway, sorry for all the bad jokes. The point I wanted to make is this: South Africa is still the best entry point into Africa. Things like these.innovations are reassuring and sometimes exciting. But the problem is not neo-colonisation as much as Africa colonising other parts of Africa (with the help of others ®). Don't worry too much about the details, rather imagine what you would want them to be. The South Africans would probably implement it then.
LoSboccacc 9y ago
what could possibly go wrong
pmlnr 9y ago
https://monzo.com/ https://monzo.com/ - they are already up and running, with lifted banking licence and they have an API.
dmitripopov 9y ago
Every time I stumble upon something like this a little wannabe-programmer kid in me wakes up and screams: "WOW!!! This thing is PROGRAMMABLE! I can CONTROL IT!". Good job, guys! It seems like you've hit the right spot :)
balabaster 9y ago
I love the concept of this... it took me a minute to figure out how I could get the most out of it, but the possibilities are endless... the fact that I can write my own rules that can manage my account semi-autonomously for me and know that my code is always watching my back even when I'm not - which is most of the time is awesome. I can have this account do everything I call the bank to get them to do and be told there's no facility for that. Things like automatically taking the remainder of my chequing account balance and dumping it into my savings account as my pay is being deposited so my account starts fresh from 0.00 each month and all surpluses are put into savings accounts. I can then have some kind of AI monitoring investments and automatically transferring money in and out of my investment accounts and TFSA... I love love love this idea. It could almost become a pension manager. What I don't love is the lack of information they have on their website. They're in South Africa, does this mean the service is only available for South African residents and Rands? Or can we get international accounts for U.S. and Canadian dollars and more? Anyone have any further info other than what the site presents? Do we have any founders or insiders reading that can enlighten us further?
- cpcat 9y ago
  Yes on the ProductHunt page they mention it'll be only available for South African residents as a start. https://www.producthunt.com/posts/root-6 https://www.producthunt.com/posts/root-6
  - balabaster 9y ago
    Thanks, that's too bad
keenboy 9y ago
Is there anything like this available now in the US? I've wanted this for years! Right now I've cobbled together a version of this using direct deposit to several accounts, auto-transfers every week, etc. but I'd really like more control (e.g., I'd like to deposit a daily allowance to my "spending money" debit card).
ensiferum 9y ago
Seems exciting for the few developers in the world who would want to use this. Then again I'd be wary of trusting my money with some random small bank in a foreign country. Probably not even possible to use it in the first place. Also if this was ever going to get big I'm sure the big boys would step in and have it shut down in no time
Zangoran 9y ago
Is there anything like this for the US? Really cool product though.

1015 points by s_dev 9y ago

When can I have direct control of recurring payments? I want to be able to "push" money instead of having it "pulled" from my account. This is a totally reasonable feature. If a merchant wants assurance that they will be paid, they should charge a deposit. The closest I've had is Entropay, but I don't really trust them for large payments. Recurring payments are so abused, I can't count how many times I have been mislead. And there is a strong financial incentive to mislead people. And having to contact my credit card company after the fact is not good enough.

wppick 9y ago
I think most bank's, websites already allow for this. Look under payees or pay bills
- cookiecaper 9y ago
  In my experience, this is only the case if you set up the payment through the bank's automatic payment system, which typically uses paper checks (but may do an electronic deposit for some payees who have specially registered). Most subscription-based businesses that go to your bank account get an authorization to do an "ACH pull". In some instances, this authorization alone can act as collateral (e.g., in securing payday loans or medical payment agreements). As such, I would assume that allowing consumers to revoke the authorization is more problematic than it sounds.
  - crispytx 9y ago
    That's right, the banks often send paper checks. Automatic bill pay is shit.
louwhopley 9y ago
Hey (founder of Root here), our platform gives you full API access to, for instance, do any of the things you do on the normal banking interface through code - like initiating a transfer to someone else, or building your own recurring payments system using a simple cron job :)
- apostacy 9y ago
  I will check it out. I would love to be able to script my bank. Chase.com is an ongoing battle. There are plenty of projects to automate banking, but it's an uphill battle. I'm sure if I had a business account, I'd have more access than what the browser gives me. I would love to be able to do things like, see what payments are flagged as recurring, and group them together, and sum them.
- programbreeding 9y ago
  I believe what apostacy meant was the ability to prevent a recurring payment from occurring without approval. I may have misunderstood what they meant but something along the lines of: a debit shows up in your account as pending, and you have X amount of time to approve or decline it. That way you are preventing a debit from even occurring in the first place, rather than having to fight your bank to get the money back.
  - apostacy 9y ago
    What I basically want, is to have more control. I want a similar amount of control as to what I have with paper money, or even virtual in game currencies. Right now, the scale is not tipped in my favor. I would be happy to pay for it. I understand that banks have reasons for things to be arraigned the way they are. I would love to have a "personal firewall" level of control over my money. I'd like to see that Widget of the month club is requesting $50, and I can confirm/deny it. I only signed up for a widget of the month because it seemed like a good idea, but they deceived me into thinking I could back out at any time, and then when I cancelled my account, they just "paused" it for three months. We don't use the "banking" model for other resources that are supposed to be our property. An app on my phone isn't supposed to be able to delete my photos, and the accepted solution is not that I call some external entity to undelete them. I know that these examples are very different, but that is what I would like. I can also simply block someone from contacting me if I want, without having to justify it to my isp. I want to be able to do that with my money. If someone disagrees with me doing this, and thinks I still owe them money, they can be free to sue me, or do some other sanctions. Right now, I create virtual credit cards and only fund them enough to pay my recurring payments. I want to automate it. 95% of the time, recurring payments that fail for me are done in bad faith, and these actors will not make a fuss if they can't process their payments. I know this is probably a pipe dream, and that there are already system I can use, and that our financial system is set up the way it is for reasons. But that's a pain point for me, and a lot of people. People would like to be empowered, and feel that they have control. I think, in the end, things won't really change. Most people will still pay legitimate charges.
crispytx 9y ago
Great idea. I hate the current system where companies can get access to your bank account and pull money out at will.
SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago
In the UK this is known as a "standing order". The account holder is fully in control of how much money goes out and when. Is this not the case in other places?
- ldrndll 9y ago
  In South Africa we have stop orders and debit orders. Stop orders are for an amount agreed in advance. Debit orders allow the payee to debit your account for whatever amount they choose, obviously with the proviso that they have to produce evidence that you agreed to this, and that they can justify the charge. I've heard some stories about people having issues with unscrupulous payees abusing this, but I believe that's rare. I, for example, pay for my mortgage, credit card, cellphone, satellite TV, etc. via debit order.
moftz 9y ago
I wish I could just have the ability to create virtual credit card numbers. I would be able to fill it with a certain balance, set up recurring balance refills, change the expiration date, keep a merchant whitelist, and cancel the number at any time. This gives me the opportunity to make sure that even if my card number was stolen or abused, the charge won't go through. If I sign up for a free trial or a service I only want for x months but need a card on record, I give them a virtual number and set the card up to cancel itself after the period is up. Or if I want to put all my netflix, hulu, pandora, etc charges on one number, I can set a monthly allowance for each merchant. If someone changes their prices, the charge gets declined and I can go back and reup the limit if I want.
- apostacy 9y ago
  I use entropay.com, which lets you create virtual credit cards, and pre-charge them. And if the account runs out of money, the transaction is declined, and the merchant has no way to get your money after that. As a warning, there are some problems with entropay.com though. Over the last year, some merchants have been able to detect that entropay.com virtual credit cards are prepaid, and require a plastic card. Also, entropy cards are from Malta, so companies like Spotify or Netflix will only give you access to content licensed there. Finally, and most importantly, entropay.com has a tendency to "float" your money, and I've heard that sometimes they just snatch it. I've never dealt with more than $150 at a time. Since they are based in Malta, I think it would be very hard to dispute anything with them. But if you have to do any bigger transactions, you should use a bank here anyway. But it's great for trying out services where you don't trust them, or are just concerned with overages. I use them as a buffer for a lot of recurring payments. I've seen some services on hackernews that offer virtual credit cards, but the problem is, that they all are tied to some underlying checking account, and even if the prepaid balance is declined, the company is obligated to somehow collect the money, if they can. There's no way to simply cancel a recurring payment. I'm sure that this is because they are required to by banks in the US. I really wanted to have a complex money firewall, like you describe, but in practice, I've ended up just using plain old credit cards for most things. It is still very good to have an entropay account, though.
  - 9y ago
mavidser 9y ago
Exactly. I always imagined a future where there would be an oAuth scopes like gateway for banks. Something like - This website requires the following permission: [x] Monthly recurring payments of $20 [o] Automatically get the payments [ ] Send me the link to deposit every month > Proceed > Cancel Life would have been so simpler then (Obviously I haven't thought this through completely, but something similar to this with proper security would be far superior than our current model of Name + Credit card number + CVV).
- kuschku 9y ago
  Well, this is a thing in the EU. You usually pay via SEPA recurring transfers, and just authorize a company to take $n money monthly (and can easily revoke). Or you set up an automated recurring transaction to transmit that much money. Or you allow a company to take just any amount, at any time, but you can revoke each transfer. This last is how you usually connect debit cards, credit cards, Amazon, PayPal, to your account.
  - defined 9y ago
    I developed a serious allergy to what were called "debit orders" when I used to live outside the USA many years ago. You would sign a form to allow the merchant to debit your bank account every month for (say) a subscription. Cancellation was theoretically possible by calling or mailing the merchant, but too many times, an extra payment (or two, or three...) went through and it was hell to get the money back. The banks were not much help - you would have to try to get the debit reversed, and it was no fun. I think I had a few similar experiences here in the USA, but I can't recall specifics. Now I pay everything in "push" mode via online banking, as silly as that may seem. I hope things like SEPA work better at revocation than what I experienced back in the day!

bbno4 9y ago

How is this different from Monzo?

tyingq 9y ago
South Africa vs UK.
esMazer 9y ago
I don't see any mention on Monzo's page about having an API. EDIT: Found a blog post about it! https://monzo.com/blog/2016/02/03/mondo-api/ https://monzo.com/blog/2016/02/03/mondo-api/ cool!
- colinramsay 9y ago
  https://monzo.com/docs/ https://monzo.com/docs/
- fastball 9y ago
  https://monzo.com/docs/ https://monzo.com/docs/ ??
  - esMazer 9y ago
    yep found it: https://developers.monzo.com/ https://developers.monzo.com/
fastball 9y ago
Looks like it's a more complete API, with methods to change/approve/reject transactions as they happen, rather than more of a record API. For instance, with the reference to a "programmable card". I'm not sure exactly what that means, but it sounds like a feature Monzo doesn't have.
sly010 9y ago
It's in South Africa.
haftrine 9y ago

baconomatic 9y ago

This will be interesting to watch. I'm hoping they have sandbox accounts!

louwhopley 9y ago
Hey @baconomatic, founder here - we do have a sandbox built in so that you can test your scripts/programs first before running letting it touch your real money :)
- davidpelaez 9y ago
  Would it be possible to get an account for playing in the sandbox without living in South Africa?
- baconomatic 9y ago
  Awesome! I was half kidding, because I would definitely have a typo and send my money who knows where.
kzisme 9y ago
This was my thought too hah! "Opps...wrong command there goes one paycheck"
- louwhopley 9y ago
  Ha! Yeah, we've built in some things to prevent that type of user error :)
  - kzisme 9y ago
    I figured as such :) looks neat - although I think businesses would benefit more than a normal consumer would by making use of it.

artursapek 9y ago

I wish brokerages/banks had APIs, even just for reading. I've tried just reading my Fidelity transactions with a script and they seem to have blocked my server.

medmunds 9y ago
You might check into the https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Financial_Exchange https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Financial_Exchange format. Software like Quicken is able to download transactions from several banks and brokerages using it. (I don't know what's involved in getting access to its endpoints, though.)
- curryhowardiso 9y ago
  > Microsoft, Intuit and CheckFree announced the OFX standard on 16 January 1997. > Many banks in the US let customers use personal financial management software to automatically download their bank statements in OFX format, but most Canadian,[2][3][4] United Kingdom and Australian (CBA exports OFX and QIF files) banks do not allow this. I'm not criticizing - we need to do better! Developers demand JSON!!! :)

egeozcan 9y ago

I'd like to have something like this for Germany. I am willing to pay 10€/month for a simple API access to my bank account. I need neither hosted code nor push. Just give me remote access for my scripts. Probably I'm asking for the impossible because of the heavy regulation in Germany but just wanted to put it out there.

1ba9115454 9y ago
Have you thought about using a headless browser or web scraping?
- egeozcan 9y ago
  A friend of mine did this but after two times web access being disabled for his account because "suspicious activity" he stopped. Second time he actually tried very hard to simulate a human with delays, user-agent, browser capabilities and so on but didn't help.
  - ic4l 9y ago
    This is getting harder and harder. Chrome allows you to do a .click but it also sends a tainted flag. I'm not sure if headless browses also send non-tainted events.
duozerk 9y ago
You can simulate a browser and act as if you're a normal, browser using customer. Encapsulate it and you've got an "API"; though it'll be a bit painful as a lot of banks' web backends are fucked up and you'll need to keep up to date with their changes, but still. I did it for my French bank account at one point (get balance + submit transfer).
- nickpsecurity 9y ago
  Your comment might be the first I've seen justifying the use of Electron. ;)
- 9y ago

tarr11 9y ago

What problem does this attempt to solve? Their slack example doesn't seem particularly pressing.

1ba9115454 9y ago
It might be useful for businesses that wish to API control over their money.
- andy_ppp 9y ago
  Yes exactly. Paying invoices, CRM systems, Taxation etc. The list of uses is almost endless for businesses.
louwhopley 9y ago
Hey @tarr11, founder here. We're trying to make banking more accessible to creators/developers so that they can build their own problem solving solutions :)
- davidpelaez 9y ago
  This is amazing. Are you on twitter or some other place I can find you and talk?
Sean1708 9y ago
What about the Uber example? That's seem pretty cool. But I think the problem it's attempting to solve is that without Root a bank must implement any kind of features that you may want, Root you allows you to implement any features you want. Although I can't decide whether this is an amazing thing, or a terrible terrible thing.
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  > What about the Uber example? That's seem pretty cool. edit: I didn't see the Uber example, so I was working off an incorrect premise. It actually makes sense. How would that work in real life? Uber doesn't charge you before your ride is complete, and at that point your payment would bounce, and now you're in trouble. Ditto for fast-food diet; nobody's going to be happy when you walk up to the counter at 16 Handles with your big bucket of ice cream and your card doesn't go through. I suppose the idea is to keep all of this in mind, but it still seems odd. But you're right - someone will come up with an interesting use case for it. (My first idea was a card for my kid, so they can only make $10 worth of in-game purchases a month.)

neuralFatigue 9y ago

I wonder if they'll get a C & D over 'Erlich Bachman' .

ChicagoBoy11 9y ago
What is this referring to? Like, where is there a reference to SV on their site?
- d3fr4gm3nt 9y ago
  The right top corner of the user interface screenshot has the user name.

cryptarch 9y ago

In the EU this is soon going to be solved by the PSD2 system. Coming in November 2018 or later, depending on how soon the regulations are finalized. It's a mandatory-to-implement protocol, which will allow consumers to give 1st and 3rd parties API access to their bank accounts.

JustSomeNobody 9y ago
What protections are in place so that third party doesn't have a glitch and take all a person's money?
- Tharkun 9y ago
  The same protections that are in place to access bank accounts right now. Strong authentication being the most obvious one.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

madamelic 9y ago

Is this South Africa only? Any plans on coming to the US? :)

louwhopley 9y ago
yes, and yes ;) (but not immediately)

djm_ 9y ago

If anyone's looking for API access to UK high street banks: https://teller.io https://teller.io

sjtgraham 9y ago
Thanks! Founder here. Currently in private beta, but if you're with Santander, Nationwide, RBS, Natwest, Ulster Bank NI, or IOM Bank I can give you access - sg@teller.io.
- bjackman 9y ago
  Have you integrated this directly with the banks or do you take user's login details and scrape the online banking sites (like MoneyDashboard does)? I would be more than willing to switch banks just to get a read-only API for this kind of thing, if only it was properly integrated (read: I don't have to give my login details to a third party)
  - sjtgraham 9y ago
    Teller uses the APIs used by the bank's own mobile app, i.e. they have been reverse-engineered. Whether Teller requires personal credentials is dependent on the bank's implementation. Barclays (integration temporarily unavailable), and Nationwide use EMV CAP (the card reader) for registration. If we can figure out a way to not take user credentials, we will always take that route. I recommend Starling and Monzo if you want a read-only API for your own account, but if you want to build apps for 65 million customers they're not yet much use to you.
    - bjackman 9y ago
      Cool, thanks for the info. It's such a shame we have to resort to (slightly) compromising on security & reliability to make banking work for consumers. Do you think there's a future where there's a standard API that banks expose for authorised apps to get at customer data?
  - jsudhams 9y ago

glitchfreak 9y ago

Any idea when this will launch in beta? Really keen to try it out.

s_dev 9y ago

People asking about what problem this solves haven't been to South Africa or Zimbabwe which in some ways are ahead of the West in creating cashless societies. The biggest bank is a phone operator and people can send each other money over the phone and from what I understand this is very common. Also interestingly most phones aren't smart phones. It's mostly analog. Banks have a serious incentive to create and encourage cashless societies -- because they're limited by the liquidity ratio. People there are more skeptical of hard cash there while here it's nearly on par with Gold in terms of confidence. I don't think I've to explain offering an API allows third party engagement and endorsement and an opportunity for others to grow their service. Yes there are security concerns but these can be all secured from backend.

jsudhams 9y ago
One of the issue with cashless is that banks/financial service provided making money of of the money i.e. $100 making more than $100 with out adding any real value in fees (100 time circulation). I know time is money in most western countries but my place we do one crop a year and sit idle for 9 months. So time is not a money and we would rather give cash to a person get that much worth of a product. E.g. My sons school charges 2% extra if i use credit card, Rs 20 if i use netbank and does not accept cash. So on a Saturday i am happy pay in cash when i have nothing else to do. Unless government makes the transfer without fee (now they can print less money and that cost can be used for this infra of transfer), why is cashless better in the scenario where that saved time is not used for anything value generating? Genuinely looking for answers to this that makes sense rather than saying time is money.
- hasbroslasher 9y ago
  The example of your son's school is fine, but imagine that your son lives in another country. Cash has other problems beside being slow. It's insecure - a person could steal your $20 bill from your mailbox or his, or from the Post Office. It's untraceable - if your son's school says "We never got your payment" but your son swears he gave them the cash, you're stuck in a situation where either your son or the school is ripping you off (I'm sure your son would never do that). And last, it takes both time and money to convert cash to another currency. Taking the cash to somewhere where a person can convert it to the preferred currency is bad enough, and then it costs you money on top of it.

jurandom 9y ago

Cool. I see parallels with Ethereum here. How complex can the rules be? Could you have smart contract functionality?

louwhopley 9y ago
The rules can be as complex as the code you can write. It effectively sends a webhook on which you can respond "decline" to stop the tx from succeeding. (RootCode also packages this concept to make it quicker to prototype)
- lightbyte 9y ago
  Is there a timeout for approving/declining transactions? I'd be interested in setting up a sort of 2FA for large/over budget transactions where I'd have to manually approve it before it goes through. e.g. "You've already spent over your monthly Amazon budget by X amount, are you sure you want to make this $200 purchase?"

bongonewhere 9y ago

Hi All, If you are interested in talking to the devs they can be found in #root on zatech slack group For invites check https://zatech.github.io/site/ https://zatech.github.io/site/ disclaimer: Not a root dev just a user on the zatech slack group

louwhopley 9y ago
Thanks bongonewhere :) I'm also on here to answer some Q's

louwhopley 9y ago

Founder here :) Feel free to ask me any questions

needz 9y ago
Any plans to back this with a blockchain of any kind?
- ska 9y ago
  I'm curious, to what end?
  - needz 9y ago
    As an extension to customizing your bank account. It'd be nice to be able to pull funds from cryptocoin accounts or make calls to smart contracts, etc. I'm thinking this could be the IFTTT of bank accounts, so I want to see as many connections as possible.
    - ska 9y ago
      Well that makes sense, but not what I would call "backing it". I think the terminology confused me, integrating other accounts, etc. is a clearer target.
- louwhopley 9y ago
  We're currently playing in the fiat currency space, but we are keeping an eye out for ways to merge the two
  - louwhopley 9y ago
    One beta user built a script that sells bitcoin in real-time as he swipes his card and tops up his fiat account, effectively making his card "spend bitcoin" :)
    - 9y ago

fixxer 9y ago

As someone who doesn't want to share my creds with Mint or rummage through GNU Cash to write my own solution, this looks like a great idea. I'd love to build a consolidated dashboard for my networth with APIs like this.

IMTDb 9y ago

Is this US only or available anywhere (Belgian inside)

t3po7re5 9y ago

As someone who works at a credit card company Transaction data usually doesn't look that clean. But this is a cool concept, looking forward to ideas that are implemented!

solidsalvia 9y ago

Wells Fargo is introducing an API for small businesses last I heard. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/its-bonkers-that-banks-dont-provide-apis-wells-fargo-xero https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/its-bonkers-that-...

edw519 9y ago

Root is a lightweight bank account designed to be accessible through code. Wait, what? Code you write yourself? Sounds like they may have accidentally provided the perfect solution to different problem: technical recruiting and screening. No more technical interviews. If your code doesn't work, you don't get your money. Woo hoo, problem solved.

KirinDave 9y ago

This is the sort of thing American banks just can't do at scale. Which is probably a good thing, to be honest.

mcherm 9y ago
Don't bet on that.
- KirinDave 9y ago
  I mean, I did and I got a lot of money from betting on that. I'm post exit on precisely that bet, and were I not so incredibly tired of fintech I'd bet again. Many national American banks are toxically opposed to actual modernization, for a variety of reasons. Their classical "enterprise" beliefs on security put all the banks I've talked to well behind the curve. But also, I want to avoid a scenario where the US is a principle innovator in technology and also in finance.
  - mcherm 9y ago
    > Many national American banks are toxically opposed to actual modernization, for a variety of reasons. That is true of many, but not of all. I work for a US bank of national scope that IS working hard to achieve actual modernization.
    - KirinDave 9y ago
      I'm almost certain I know who you work for, and if I'm right I'm contractually obligated to end the conversation here. Good luck.
Tharkun 9y ago
Not entirely sure why you were downvoted. American banks are pretty horrible from a technology point of view. I've dealt with a couple of US banks, and they're still very much stuck in the "paper cheque"-era, with no desire to do anything about it.
9y ago

hoschicz 9y ago

I've sent them an email asking them if they are planning to be SAR-only, here's the reply: Hi Ondřej, We're launching in South Africa, but have plans to expand to the EU/US in the near future. Be sure to sign up to our waiting list, as we'll keep everyone there posted on new events :)

louwhopley 9y ago
Haha :)
yaur 9y ago
Very interested in this when you come to the US as long as it has a reasonable fee structure.

fazkan 9y ago

Finally, have been waiting for this for a long time now.

musikele 9y ago

In Italy there is a similar solution, more targetized to ventures and companies: http://platfr.io http://platfr.io

matdehaast 9y ago

Hey, @louwhopley. So cool to see this project on HN! Signed up for your early access a few weeks ago and hope to get access soon. I think there is a lot of opportunities still within Africa for the informal sector with technology. However, the FICA guidelines make it quite difficult to operate in this space. Do you see a future where we can service this sector better whilst still be compliant?

louwhopley 9y ago
That's part of our mission :)

cosinetau 9y ago

That's a legit name.

deleted 9y ago

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crispytx 9y ago

Does anybody know anything about the company behind this, OfferZen?

reviseddamage 9y ago
this is the main challenge startups in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia will face when trying to launch financial service alternatives; Fear and distrust of the young and unknown and subservient loyalty to the mature and known.
- crispytx 9y ago
  Haha, no I don't distrust them. I want to invest when they go public!
matdehaast 9y ago
Yeah OfferZen is the localised version of Hired in South Africa

EGreg 9y ago

Finally! Can I write scripts to for example trade some stuff for bitcoin, pay people etc.

matt_wulfeck 9y ago

Does anyone know how much data is offered on the retailers where money is spent? This is important. I'd like to easily classify and organize purchases similar to mint without having to hand all of my data over to a third party.

deleted 9y ago

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Kinnard 9y ago

Might be confused with Rootstock: https://medium.com/@CryptoIQ.ca/rootstock-smart-contracts-on-the-bitcoin-blockchain-e52b065421a8 https://medium.com/@CryptoIQ.ca/rootstock-smart-contracts-on... It's a blockchain programming layer aiming to implement Ethereum's virtual machine on top of Bitcoin's blockchain . . . programmable bitcoin accounts . . .

jacksnipe 9y ago

At first I was wondering what I could possibly use this for, but as I sat and thought about it, I realized the possibilities are enormous. I'd like to know if the following are possible: 1. Forcing me to stay on budget, unless there's an emergency (perhaps allow purchases over budget after the third attempt). 2. Automatically distribute paychecks or other income into different accounts (some to retirement, some to savings, some to checking, w/e...); this behavior could change based on the current distribution of your money too, so if your "emergency fund" got really low you could automatically spend more of your income replenishing it. 3. Deny unwanted transactions and tightly control your own fraud detection (SMS confirmation for every purchase out of your zip code, confirmations for purchases from new places, you name it...). 4. Automate the creation and destruction of virtual cards to minimize danger of online purchases or to make sure that "free trial" never starts charging you. I'm sure there's tons of other awesome ideas, but I want all of these quite badly.

pdelbarba 9y ago
I really like all of this. In particular I wish there was a way of setting your own fraud prevention constraints instead of having the bank try and figure out what your patterns are. I assume they don't because they're afraid of Average Joe disabling everything because they're annoyed and know the card company will reimburse it all anyway.
- hart_russell 9y ago
  I had someone buy $200 worth of jeans 800 miles away from my home a few months ago... for some reason Visa did not find that suspicious. I was smart enough to thoroughly read my statement that month and dispute that charge.
  - hetspookjee 9y ago
    In all honesty, that sounds reasonable for a holiday purchase.
    - 9y ago

grandalf 9y ago

This is very clever. I'd like to be able to "guard" my account by declining certain transactions, even if I made them willingly or agreed to have them scheduled.

spanishgum 9y ago

I wonder if anyone would ever be willing to link this up to a personal website and publicly display all transactions live. That would take transparency to a whole new level. Call me crazy but I feel compelled.

swalsh 9y ago

I think the power of this is potentially not the apps I'll write for myself, but the apps other people write. Without knowing anything about it, this might potentially allow people to do the 100 things that would be nice, but didn't quite provide enough value to justify building the underlying infrastructure. I think you can compare it to going back to 1993, and wanting to build Yelp, but having to invent, and sell the phone to go along with it. This could be huge.

Meekro 9y ago

Anyone remember Seed[1], the YC startup that tried to do programmable bank accounts years ago? They did eventually launch, and I have an account, but all the programmable stuff went away and we're left with basic business bank accounts rather than the original vision. I wonder what happened there, and I hope Root can better stay on track! [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9066363 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9066363

btmerr 9y ago
Hey there. I'm Brian, the CEO of Seed. Thanks for remembering us and thank you for trying us out. :) Long story short, we're still working on making the API available to our members. Plans changed along the way and we ended up releasing our mobile business bank account first, but our long term goal of offering a more open platform remains. It's tough to do anything innovative within the US banking system due to regulations, partner challenges, risk, and other factors, but we're going to keep working at it.
- Meekro 9y ago
  Hey Brian, I'm glad to hear that you guys are still at it! Your original vision is exactly what I wanted. We got an account for our small business because paying contractors with a monthly cron job that initiates an ACH transfer is exactly the kind of nerdy thing we want to do. We're using it, and waiting for the API to come along. I hope you guys succeed! Not many startup founders look at the tangled mess of regulations that is the financial sector and think, "now that's where I want to be!"

coding123 9y ago

Going a little beyond, why not offer this to ANYONE. So once a lot of developers create a bunch of apps, people that are not developers can browse apps that have special integrations that are important for those people. I get they want to attract developers right now however.

jboggan 9y ago

I can't wait to have race conditions in my bank account! But seriously, this looks really interesting, sign me up.

brilliantcode 9y ago

> Powered by Standard Bank South Africa Doesn't give me much confidence. Allgedly hacked & involved in a fraud case [1] [2] [1] http://city-press.news24.com/Business/standard-bank-r300m-fraud-case-linked-to-hacking-20160701 http://city-press.news24.com/Business/standard-bank-r300m-fr... [2] https://businesstech.co.za/news/mobile/170629/major-sa-banks-taken-to-court-over-internet-fraud/ https://businesstech.co.za/news/mobile/170629/major-sa-banks...

lalitkale 9y ago
In addition to that you can observe that their website's certificate details. it seems they are using fee ssl provided from cloudfare. Not really a confidence booster and definitely not even close to fintech security which we can trust. Mastercard logo is displayed without any hint that they are official partner of visa or mastercard. The said bank and offerzen site does not have links etc. There is no documentation or hints about legal disputes resolution or any kind of compliance mechanism ever mentioned on site. Though I like the concept, will hold off still I get to know that the site is genuine.

newintellectual 9y ago

Ok. So why wouldn't this be a black-hat hacker's version of heaven? Writing Javascript scripts that touch my bank account directly must be the bulls-eye target of all bulls-eyes. What's the security model?

deleted 9y ago

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theprop 9y ago

Hmmm...it's very unlikely that everyone who will open a "Root" account will write their own apps to control their account. So the idea is that any developer can create a "Root" app for my "Root" bank account...and then sell my data, get hacked, start transferring my money without my knowing it?!

kusmi 9y ago

Sounds like it would be neat to use this for a business account. Just need a corporate accountant chatbot.

archeantus 9y ago

This looks amazing. I actually spent several months making an awesome Mint killer. The only problem was getting access to bank data that wasn't crazy expensive. If this pans out, I've got a beautiful app ready to roll! Anyone want to help out?

curryhowardiso 9y ago
Have you seen plaid.com? Also - yes :)

33W 9y ago

What considerations do persons in the US need to take into account before opening a foreign bank account?

nodesocket 9y ago

This looks incredibly awesome. A few questions though. 1.) Can I open a business account? 2.) FDIC insured? 3.) Out of South Africa makes me very nervous. What protections/assurances are offered for US customers? Reminds me of when I first saw /dev/payments (Stripe) launch. Great potential.

ic4l 9y ago

Are there any US banks that offer such a credit card api at the transaction level where you can reject within XX seconds? Been looking for something like this forever, or is there a way to partner with a bank for less than $1m to do such a thing?

AnsemWise 9y ago

This is fantastic, I've been thinking about this for years. Allow your code to exert willpower over your budget when your's is lacking

Charliecf 9y ago

Very interesting concept... this kind of accessibility opens a lot of possibilities For example: simple things like better tracking my budgets or pulling transaction history. I have a pain doing that from my banks who gives me PDF or only goes back 6 months of data

Nalta 9y ago

I really really do not want the ability to write bugs in my bank account.

marcosbeirig 9y ago

> Extend your account by building new features and integrating with other services using our securely hosted JavaScript code. Your current balance is: NaN

undefinedblog 9y ago
which is a 'number' LOL

cstrat 9y ago

This is something I have wished banks would one day provide! Aussie banks might one day catch on. Love to read a write up in 6 months from someone who has played around and got this working. See how useful it really is.

hbk1966 9y ago

The more I think about this the more brilliant it becomes.

duke360 9y ago

i think this is great! i want an account there!

rkv 9y ago

Since the very beginning of online banking I've wanted two things: IP whitelisting and a master switch to enable/disable withdrawals. I've settled for 2FA but even top banks in Canada are still not offering it. I work in security and have witnessed some extremely well-crafted endpoint malware that can intercept banking sessions.

mikorym 9y ago

I find it interesting that this comments section has become as proudly South African as Stellenbosch Sauvignon Blanc. I don't even need to read whatever the API (or legislation) says to understand how we got to this.opportunity. My little experience on any topics of any importance tell me that maybe there should be a little context to this whole thing. So, let me make some pseudorandom comments that may be of use to all the shadow followers here. South Africa is the Best Country in the World ®. They are ahead in nature conservation (nr 1). They have wide open spaces (you can hide from belligerents through obscurity). They have extreme safety. As in, you're either very safe, or very unsafe. And the difference could be a couple of seconds. They even have Very Good Universities ®. Finally, they have fertile opportunities, since the rest of Africa is pretty broken (except maybe some of the neighbours who are pretty not broken). But the core issue here, just like at every previous timestamp, is politics. There is a big philosophical battle raging that is based on concepts such as "I was here first", "I claimed this first", "We are all African, except you", "I am the sharpest pencil", "Everybody deserves a certificate", "I am actually building something", "Take away all the buildings" and then, the most popular one, which is: "I also want some spears". Anyway, the point is the following. Banks are kinda evil, while banks in SA seems to try to be not evil, except when they don't. This is a complicated thing. Just as complicated as Zuma & Ramaphosa, inc. There are also people who already have spears that like to poke things. Now, the everybody deserves a certificate thing is not such a good idea. (Ask Mark Shuttleworth). But if one notices, when it comes to tech, South Africa has always been rather bright. Solar panels, batteries, pretty aircraft, etc etc. Anyway, sorry for all the bad jokes. The point I wanted to make is this: South Africa is still the best entry point into Africa. Things like these.innovations are reassuring and sometimes exciting. But the problem is not neo-colonisation as much as Africa colonising other parts of Africa (with the help of others ®). Don't worry too much about the details, rather imagine what you would want them to be. The South Africans would probably implement it then.

LoSboccacc 9y ago

what could possibly go wrong

pmlnr 9y ago

https://monzo.com/ https://monzo.com/ - they are already up and running, with lifted banking licence and they have an API.

dmitripopov 9y ago

Every time I stumble upon something like this a little wannabe-programmer kid in me wakes up and screams: "WOW!!! This thing is PROGRAMMABLE! I can CONTROL IT!". Good job, guys! It seems like you've hit the right spot :)

balabaster 9y ago

I love the concept of this... it took me a minute to figure out how I could get the most out of it, but the possibilities are endless... the fact that I can write my own rules that can manage my account semi-autonomously for me and know that my code is always watching my back even when I'm not - which is most of the time is awesome. I can have this account do everything I call the bank to get them to do and be told there's no facility for that. Things like automatically taking the remainder of my chequing account balance and dumping it into my savings account as my pay is being deposited so my account starts fresh from 0.00 each month and all surpluses are put into savings accounts. I can then have some kind of AI monitoring investments and automatically transferring money in and out of my investment accounts and TFSA... I love love love this idea. It could almost become a pension manager. What I don't love is the lack of information they have on their website. They're in South Africa, does this mean the service is only available for South African residents and Rands? Or can we get international accounts for U.S. and Canadian dollars and more? Anyone have any further info other than what the site presents? Do we have any founders or insiders reading that can enlighten us further?

cpcat 9y ago
Yes on the ProductHunt page they mention it'll be only available for South African residents as a start. https://www.producthunt.com/posts/root-6 https://www.producthunt.com/posts/root-6
- balabaster 9y ago
  Thanks, that's too bad

keenboy 9y ago

Is there anything like this available now in the US? I've wanted this for years! Right now I've cobbled together a version of this using direct deposit to several accounts, auto-transfers every week, etc. but I'd really like more control (e.g., I'd like to deposit a daily allowance to my "spending money" debit card).

ensiferum 9y ago

Seems exciting for the few developers in the world who would want to use this. Then again I'd be wary of trusting my money with some random small bank in a foreign country. Probably not even possible to use it in the first place. Also if this was ever going to get big I'm sure the big boys would step in and have it shut down in no time

Zangoran 9y ago

Is there anything like this for the US? Really cool product though.