6 ms·

Show HN: Hack Club Bank – A Bank for Student Hackers

141 points by zachlatta 8y ago

pah861 8y ago
Amazing work y'all - this is incredible and no doubt going to impact so many young hackers building things.
XiZhao 8y ago
Amazing! Young hackers I know have been so blocked by this problem. I don't think most people remember how suffocating it was be a high school student -- this will be a big change for so many young hackers I know.
zanedb 8y ago
I’m consistently amazed by what the Hack Club team is able to accomplish – amazing launch!
gailees 8y ago
Even as a college hackathon organizer, bank accounts were a huge hassle that almost sank our event. This is incredible. Every student should have the opportunity to go to a hackathon. Infrastructure like this is crucial to increasing access.
kieranbro 8y ago
Giving hackers bank accounts has a nice ring to it :D
torbjorn 8y ago
Mostly unrelated question related to banks, does anyone know of banks that expose an api that owners of consumer checking accounts can use? Specifically to do things like read balance and recent transactions. What banks make this easy and have good documentation?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- liamcardenas 8y ago
  Check out plaid.com (I have no affiliation) It’s an api service that integrates with most major banks.
  - OJFord 8y ago
    Haven't looked at this one, but these things usually ask for and store your login details, and then simply scrape the bank's own online banking site to serve it up as an API. Because what else can they do? They have the same access you do. Unless you don't give them it, which you shouldn't.
    - adr18n 8y ago
      Plaid uses banking APIs. I know this because they once had a dispute with Capital One as they wouldn't update their API versions.
- rmah 8y ago
  Banks have supported consumer-level API's since the 1990's. At first they were specific to Intuit Quicken and Microsoft Money but now they have moved to OFX (Open Financial eXchange). A partial list of banks that support OFX is here: https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/OFX_Direct_Connect_Bank_Settings https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/OFX_Direct_Connect_Bank_Settin.... For your own bank, look to see if they support import into Intuit Quicken or Microsoft Money. If they do, you can probably access the API directly yourself. Note, you may have to pay a service fee to access the API. This will vary depending on the bank.
- madeofpalk 8y ago
  In the UK, Monzo has a fairly good API for reading your account details, balance and transactions. It's 'private access only' (can only access your account) https://developers.monzo.com https://developers.monzo.com https://docs.monzo.com https://docs.monzo.com
infinitebattery 8y ago
A college hackathon organizer here (and former high school hackathon organizer). This is so useful. Dealing with high school/university administration takes up an incredible amount of time. When it came to reimbursements, my university took months to pay back student organizers who paid out of their own pocket to buy last minute items.
blennon 8y ago
This is a great example of a niche banking solution which is far better than any traditional bank can provide. I think we'll see a lot more of this as banking APIs become more available. My company is working on similar problem and solution for youth sports teams and clubs which are also non-profits (formally or informally).
- UltimateFloofy 8y ago
  Thats awesome! The debit card solution and 501(c)3 eligibility that hack club presents is genius and so often overlooked in fledgling youth sports and organizations. I hope that ground.work can find a way for fringe sports and teams to also get their organization finances in order as many sports businesses tend to focus only on the main priority sports. (I run an ultimate frisbee organization)
- will_brown 8y ago
  >This is a great example of a niche banking solution which is far better than any traditional bank can provide Seems to me it is a traditional bank offering the banking services...only in authentic Silicon Valley style its being marketed exactly as you describe, a non traditional bank disrupting the status quo.
- lgregg 8y ago
  Wouldn't that be a 501(c)(7) not type 3?
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  > I think we'll see a lot more of this as banking APIs become more available. Available to whom, though? Companies with millions of dollars of capital or VC money? I've been asking for, in the past decade, is a read/write API access to my personal account. I can make it work from there myself, and I can do it better than the bank. Hell, even just read-only access would streamline my banking and solve 90% of the use cases I have in mind. But no, it didn't happen, and it's not going to happen. And I suspect why: because web and mobile apps are first and foremost a way for the bank to upsell financial products.
faissaloo 8y ago
One more step towards youth liberation!
zbruhnke 8y ago
Congrats on getting this launched Zach! I really enjoyed our talk and the vision. Still hope we can find a way to work together at some point!
akeck 8y ago
Is using the word bank allowed?
ValentineC 8y ago
Fantastic discussion from 8 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17417593 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17417593 Congratulations on your launch!
zie 8y ago
Overall interesting, except I wonder how they manage to make it legal since basically no jurisdiction anywhere lets anyone under age sign legal contracts. So some adult somewhere is legally responsible, and if they are remote as this suggests, that's just asking for trouble. This doesn't seem to include insurance, liability issues, etc. Get a teacher at any public school in the USA to sponsor you (i.e. a school club), and suddenly the Public School System will handle ALL of this insanity for you, and ran through the schools bookstore(usually). Plus they will eat all of the costs of running it, the insurance problems, the liability issues, etc. If you are under 18 and need this stuff, it's probably easier to just find a teacher to sponsor you and let them deal with all these headaches. I imagine other countries have similar system(s) in place through their schools. It's not like "hackers" suddenly created these problems.
- zachlatta 8y ago
  Parents co-sign contracts with students, but our contracts are designed to work elegantly with co-signers, different than similar programs. We're really just a modern fiscal sponsor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_sponsorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_sponsorship) designed for students that has a financial model that is still viable when project budgets are small (i.e. <$5K). We cut costs by writing software to do repetitive work, like producing basic financial reports, instead of hiring humans. You'd be shocked by some of the work fiscal sponsors do manually. Student organizer teams assume liability for their events with our model, but we equip them with liability releases for attendees and have a relationship with a great insurance broker they can use to acquire insurance if needed. You're right: some schools offer financial services, but they're often poorly managed due to lack of resources and are usually only available in well-off areas. Even then, most teachers and school administrators are already crushed by the burden of their workload and are hesitant to take on additional work, especially if it involves potential liability issues. There are probably students in this thread who have had that experience of being turned away—it's pretty common.
  - zie 8y ago
    Ah, good to know, so you dump liability on the parent(s) heads, which is probably where it belongs anyway. I'm glad you aren't trying to do that yourself, especially remotely! I'd be very surprised if a public school in the USA didn't offer such things, but I'm sure there is some school somewhere that exists just to prove me wrong! :). But I imagine it's a rare exception. Obviously charter schools and private schools are an entirely different mess, and I can't comment on them. I know when I was a student (in a 80% people of color school) I had teachers sponsor my random events and things all the time, and it wasn't overly hard. You just have to have a good relationship with A teacher. I found my support in the "technology" dept, i.e. VICA and the other vocational groups. Even though nobody in that dept. did anything with computers, they didn't stop me from doing whatever I wanted. :) Of course we never phrased the playing games event as playing games it was ... exploring 3d virtual worlds.. I believe we called it. :) I happen to work in public education (90+% free/reduced lunch, so not a well off area) and I know the people that do the student finance stuff at the district level, they never say no, they just crunch the paperwork. I do know we sponsor all sorts of random stuff, including out of country travel for random things. So if a no is happening in "my" public schools, it must be at the local school/teacher level. But I agree I'm sure it happens. I'll have to go poke at them about that, see what I can do to help them get the local teachers/schools to say yes more often. Public libraries are also a great way to get someone else to handle all the evil paperwork, but it's generally harder to get them to commit as they are always over-worked and not generally focused on school aged children, but if you happen to get lucky and can convince them your event/etc fits in with whatever their public outreach goals happen to be at the moment, they will do all the heavy lifting for you. Otherwise you can just rent out their space for your event (usually very cheaply) using something like what you do. Schools also rent space very cheaply, usually.
anon4lol 8y ago
Most states have laws on the books that forbid you from calling your business a "bank," "pharmacy," or other restricted business unless it actually is. Simply doing so is enough to trigger regulatory intervention. I'm really surprised that they are advertising their services as the "Hacker Club Bank." Then I finally saw a disclaimer at the bottom of one of the pages: "Hack Club does not directly provide banking services. Banking services provided by Silicon Valley Bank, an FDIC-certified institution." Seems a little sleazy to me, but still, a neat service.
ProjectBarks 8y ago
Zach is killing it. Me and him had lunch about 3 years ago and to see this grow into something that is empowering hackers is heart warming. High school hackers are one of the most under-appreciated technological innovators.
jakejarvis 8y ago
Congrats guys, great execution! Surely this can and should be applied to all sorts of other school clubs/events down the road, I know it would have been incredibly helpful for the clubs I was in back then. But I’m always a fan of starting small and niche. :)

141 points by zachlatta 8y ago

Amazing work y'all - this is incredible and no doubt going to impact so many young hackers building things.

Amazing! Young hackers I know have been so blocked by this problem. I don't think most people remember how suffocating it was be a high school student -- this will be a big change for so many young hackers I know.

zanedb 8y ago

I’m consistently amazed by what the Hack Club team is able to accomplish – amazing launch!

gailees 8y ago

Even as a college hackathon organizer, bank accounts were a huge hassle that almost sank our event. This is incredible. Every student should have the opportunity to go to a hackathon. Infrastructure like this is crucial to increasing access.

kieranbro 8y ago

Giving hackers bank accounts has a nice ring to it :D

torbjorn 8y ago

Mostly unrelated question related to banks, does anyone know of banks that expose an api that owners of consumer checking accounts can use? Specifically to do things like read balance and recent transactions. What banks make this easy and have good documentation?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
liamcardenas 8y ago
Check out plaid.com (I have no affiliation) It’s an api service that integrates with most major banks.
- OJFord 8y ago
  Haven't looked at this one, but these things usually ask for and store your login details, and then simply scrape the bank's own online banking site to serve it up as an API. Because what else can they do? They have the same access you do. Unless you don't give them it, which you shouldn't.
  - adr18n 8y ago
    Plaid uses banking APIs. I know this because they once had a dispute with Capital One as they wouldn't update their API versions.
rmah 8y ago
Banks have supported consumer-level API's since the 1990's. At first they were specific to Intuit Quicken and Microsoft Money but now they have moved to OFX (Open Financial eXchange). A partial list of banks that support OFX is here: https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/OFX_Direct_Connect_Bank_Settings https://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/OFX_Direct_Connect_Bank_Settin.... For your own bank, look to see if they support import into Intuit Quicken or Microsoft Money. If they do, you can probably access the API directly yourself. Note, you may have to pay a service fee to access the API. This will vary depending on the bank.
madeofpalk 8y ago
In the UK, Monzo has a fairly good API for reading your account details, balance and transactions. It's 'private access only' (can only access your account) https://developers.monzo.com https://developers.monzo.com https://docs.monzo.com https://docs.monzo.com

infinitebattery 8y ago

A college hackathon organizer here (and former high school hackathon organizer). This is so useful. Dealing with high school/university administration takes up an incredible amount of time. When it came to reimbursements, my university took months to pay back student organizers who paid out of their own pocket to buy last minute items.

blennon 8y ago

This is a great example of a niche banking solution which is far better than any traditional bank can provide. I think we'll see a lot more of this as banking APIs become more available. My company is working on similar problem and solution for youth sports teams and clubs which are also non-profits (formally or informally).

UltimateFloofy 8y ago
Thats awesome! The debit card solution and 501(c)3 eligibility that hack club presents is genius and so often overlooked in fledgling youth sports and organizations. I hope that ground.work can find a way for fringe sports and teams to also get their organization finances in order as many sports businesses tend to focus only on the main priority sports. (I run an ultimate frisbee organization)
will_brown 8y ago
>This is a great example of a niche banking solution which is far better than any traditional bank can provide Seems to me it is a traditional bank offering the banking services...only in authentic Silicon Valley style its being marketed exactly as you describe, a non traditional bank disrupting the status quo.
lgregg 8y ago
Wouldn't that be a 501(c)(7) not type 3?
TeMPOraL 8y ago
> I think we'll see a lot more of this as banking APIs become more available. Available to whom, though? Companies with millions of dollars of capital or VC money? I've been asking for, in the past decade, is a read/write API access to my personal account. I can make it work from there myself, and I can do it better than the bank. Hell, even just read-only access would streamline my banking and solve 90% of the use cases I have in mind. But no, it didn't happen, and it's not going to happen. And I suspect why: because web and mobile apps are first and foremost a way for the bank to upsell financial products.

faissaloo 8y ago

One more step towards youth liberation!

zbruhnke 8y ago

Congrats on getting this launched Zach! I really enjoyed our talk and the vision. Still hope we can find a way to work together at some point!

akeck 8y ago

Is using the word bank allowed?

ValentineC 8y ago

Fantastic discussion from 8 months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17417593 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17417593 Congratulations on your launch!

zie 8y ago

Overall interesting, except I wonder how they manage to make it legal since basically no jurisdiction anywhere lets anyone under age sign legal contracts. So some adult somewhere is legally responsible, and if they are remote as this suggests, that's just asking for trouble. This doesn't seem to include insurance, liability issues, etc. Get a teacher at any public school in the USA to sponsor you (i.e. a school club), and suddenly the Public School System will handle ALL of this insanity for you, and ran through the schools bookstore(usually). Plus they will eat all of the costs of running it, the insurance problems, the liability issues, etc. If you are under 18 and need this stuff, it's probably easier to just find a teacher to sponsor you and let them deal with all these headaches. I imagine other countries have similar system(s) in place through their schools. It's not like "hackers" suddenly created these problems.

zachlatta 8y ago
Parents co-sign contracts with students, but our contracts are designed to work elegantly with co-signers, different than similar programs. We're really just a modern fiscal sponsor (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_sponsorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_sponsorship) designed for students that has a financial model that is still viable when project budgets are small (i.e. <$5K). We cut costs by writing software to do repetitive work, like producing basic financial reports, instead of hiring humans. You'd be shocked by some of the work fiscal sponsors do manually. Student organizer teams assume liability for their events with our model, but we equip them with liability releases for attendees and have a relationship with a great insurance broker they can use to acquire insurance if needed. You're right: some schools offer financial services, but they're often poorly managed due to lack of resources and are usually only available in well-off areas. Even then, most teachers and school administrators are already crushed by the burden of their workload and are hesitant to take on additional work, especially if it involves potential liability issues. There are probably students in this thread who have had that experience of being turned away—it's pretty common.
- zie 8y ago
  Ah, good to know, so you dump liability on the parent(s) heads, which is probably where it belongs anyway. I'm glad you aren't trying to do that yourself, especially remotely! I'd be very surprised if a public school in the USA didn't offer such things, but I'm sure there is some school somewhere that exists just to prove me wrong! :). But I imagine it's a rare exception. Obviously charter schools and private schools are an entirely different mess, and I can't comment on them. I know when I was a student (in a 80% people of color school) I had teachers sponsor my random events and things all the time, and it wasn't overly hard. You just have to have a good relationship with A teacher. I found my support in the "technology" dept, i.e. VICA and the other vocational groups. Even though nobody in that dept. did anything with computers, they didn't stop me from doing whatever I wanted. :) Of course we never phrased the playing games event as playing games it was ... exploring 3d virtual worlds.. I believe we called it. :) I happen to work in public education (90+% free/reduced lunch, so not a well off area) and I know the people that do the student finance stuff at the district level, they never say no, they just crunch the paperwork. I do know we sponsor all sorts of random stuff, including out of country travel for random things. So if a no is happening in "my" public schools, it must be at the local school/teacher level. But I agree I'm sure it happens. I'll have to go poke at them about that, see what I can do to help them get the local teachers/schools to say yes more often. Public libraries are also a great way to get someone else to handle all the evil paperwork, but it's generally harder to get them to commit as they are always over-worked and not generally focused on school aged children, but if you happen to get lucky and can convince them your event/etc fits in with whatever their public outreach goals happen to be at the moment, they will do all the heavy lifting for you. Otherwise you can just rent out their space for your event (usually very cheaply) using something like what you do. Schools also rent space very cheaply, usually.

anon4lol 8y ago

Most states have laws on the books that forbid you from calling your business a "bank," "pharmacy," or other restricted business unless it actually is. Simply doing so is enough to trigger regulatory intervention. I'm really surprised that they are advertising their services as the "Hacker Club Bank." Then I finally saw a disclaimer at the bottom of one of the pages: "Hack Club does not directly provide banking services. Banking services provided by Silicon Valley Bank, an FDIC-certified institution." Seems a little sleazy to me, but still, a neat service.

ProjectBarks 8y ago

Zach is killing it. Me and him had lunch about 3 years ago and to see this grow into something that is empowering hackers is heart warming. High school hackers are one of the most under-appreciated technological innovators.

jakejarvis 8y ago

Congrats guys, great execution! Surely this can and should be applied to all sorts of other school clubs/events down the road, I know it would have been incredibly helpful for the clubs I was in back then. But I’m always a fan of starting small and niche. :)