5 ms·

One thing i really do not like on GNU Taler is separate customer and merchant accounts with restriction of receiving money for merchant account only. In contra

One thing i really do not like on GNU Taler is separate customer and merchant accounts with restriction of receiving money for merchant account only. In contrast to banking, where one has an account that works pretty much the same regardless of role of clients and nature of their transactions.

grothoff 5y ago
This will change in the future once we have implemented P2P payments. So consider it a feature on our roadmap. See https://docs.taler.net/design-documents/013-peer-to-peer-payments.html https://docs.taler.net/design-documents/013-peer-to-peer-pay...
lisper 5y ago
I dunno, one of the problems with modern banking is that the same account number is used for both incoming and outgoing transfers. That combined with the general lack of security makes it impossible for me to enable someone to put money into my account without also granting them the ability to take money out. Having separate accounts for incoming and outgoing would fix that. Of course, authorizing transactions with digital signatures fixes that too, but having separate accounts makes me feel kinda warm and fuzzy.
- oceanofsolaris 5y ago
  But that is just an implementation detail of who is allowed to initiate outgoing transfers from your account. For me, I needed to send a signed letter to my bank to allow recurring debiting to my landlord (and since I stopped that, no entity except myself is allowed to initiate outbound transfers from my account). That's not to say the Taler model can't work or anything, just that having one number for inbound and one for outbound transfers isn't really necessary for basic account security. The "everyone who knows my account number can draw money from my account" problem seems weird to have (and trivially solvable) .... in which country is this the default?
  - lisper 5y ago
    That policy is particular to your bank. My bank (Chase) doesn't do that. Anyone who knows my account number and has access to ACH can drain my account. (I solve this by having two accounts, one of which I use for ACH, and the other which actually holds most of my money. I have to actively transfer money from one to the other on a regular basis, but it's worth the effort to me to mitigate the risk.)
    - zajio1am 5y ago
      > That policy is particular to your bank. Anyone who knows my account number and has access to ACH can drain my account. That is unimaginable to me. Here (Czechia), banks require explicit confirmation of direct debit transfers (limit for value per period of time for each initiator of direct debit).
      - lisper 5y ago
        Yes it is rather shocking. The financial system in the US is screwed up in many ways. Sometimes I’m amazed that it works at all.

grothoff 5y ago

This will change in the future once we have implemented P2P payments. So consider it a feature on our roadmap. See https://docs.taler.net/design-documents/013-peer-to-peer-payments.html https://docs.taler.net/design-documents/013-peer-to-peer-pay...

lisper 5y ago

I dunno, one of the problems with modern banking is that the same account number is used for both incoming and outgoing transfers. That combined with the general lack of security makes it impossible for me to enable someone to put money into my account without also granting them the ability to take money out. Having separate accounts for incoming and outgoing would fix that. Of course, authorizing transactions with digital signatures fixes that too, but having separate accounts makes me feel kinda warm and fuzzy.

oceanofsolaris 5y ago
But that is just an implementation detail of who is allowed to initiate outgoing transfers from your account. For me, I needed to send a signed letter to my bank to allow recurring debiting to my landlord (and since I stopped that, no entity except myself is allowed to initiate outbound transfers from my account). That's not to say the Taler model can't work or anything, just that having one number for inbound and one for outbound transfers isn't really necessary for basic account security. The "everyone who knows my account number can draw money from my account" problem seems weird to have (and trivially solvable) .... in which country is this the default?
- lisper 5y ago
  That policy is particular to your bank. My bank (Chase) doesn't do that. Anyone who knows my account number and has access to ACH can drain my account. (I solve this by having two accounts, one of which I use for ACH, and the other which actually holds most of my money. I have to actively transfer money from one to the other on a regular basis, but it's worth the effort to me to mitigate the risk.)
  - zajio1am 5y ago
    > That policy is particular to your bank. Anyone who knows my account number and has access to ACH can drain my account. That is unimaginable to me. Here (Czechia), banks require explicit confirmation of direct debit transfers (limit for value per period of time for each initiator of direct debit).
    - lisper 5y ago
      Yes it is rather shocking. The financial system in the US is screwed up in many ways. Sometimes I’m amazed that it works at all.