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Are we even hearing ourselves? Banking-as-a-service? When has banking not been a service? Software was sold as a product, with shrinkwrapped boxes. Selling it '

Are we even hearing ourselves? Banking-as-a-service? When has banking not been a service? Software was sold as a product, with shrinkwrapped boxes. Selling it 'as-a-service' was a shift in paradigm. Appending this to businesses that have always been services just makes tech people sound out of touch. Not that this massive failure to 'disrupt' banking helps.

moltar 2y ago
I’m not sure which country you are from. But not in every country you get a “service” from a bank. I know in Canada banks are terrible (oligopolies) and the UIs are from the early 2000s with insanely bad security practices, like 4 digit passwords and SMS-only 2FAs. I’d gladly use and even pay for good UX in Canada.
- namaria 2y ago
  The quality of a service provided is immaterial to the classification of an industry as 'service'.
- rchaud 2y ago
  what's "good UX" for banking in your opinion? I don't find it difficult to track my transactions, pay bills or make transfers with my banking app.
distances 2y ago
> When has banking not been a service? If I understood right, the product here was selling banking services to other companies to build their own products on top of that. That's not a "banking service" in the typical sense, and I think the naming is correct.
- namaria 2y ago
  > selling banking services > not a "banking service" You seem to have contradicted yourself. Banking is a service in every instance of the word "banking" here. Appending "as a service" doesn't add meaningful information, it just make technology people sound outta touch with the reality of other business domains.
  - croes 2y ago
    It pretty simple. Banking service is the service of a bank. BaaS is the service of a middleman who sells the banking service of a bank to its customers. Synapse isn't a bank.
    - scrubs 2y ago
      Yah ... not a bank ... that makes it worse!
  - distances 2y ago
    No, it differentiates actual banking services from a service sold for companies to build products upon, so likely a set of APIs. There needs to be different naming for these concepts, and BaaS is a good and descriptive name for it.
    - downvotetruth 2y ago
      BaaS is terribly ambiguous; "reseller" & "aggregator" are already used and well known in other industries. VCs with more money than brains just getting schooled trying to be hip.
    - namaria 2y ago
      What's wrong with calling baking software "baking software"? The "as-a-service" everything tag is become marketing hype. It is not meaningful analysis. But at this point we can just agree to disagree. I think adding 'as-a-service' to everything and trying to 'disrupt' everything makes us look bad. You may think it looks good. Matter of opinion.
      - distances 2y ago
        For me "banking software" would imply end user software you use for banking, either as a consumer or as a company. Not something to build upon. > Matter of opinion. Indeed, there's going to be different views on these things so let's leave it there.
      - 2y ago
wormius 2y ago
The better term is really "B2B" (Business to Business). I mean, yes, in the end it's going to an "end user" (ideally a specific entity) with a bank account... But the "services" are from these middlemen looking to take yet another cut so the bank can fire people to "save money" and spend it on the (supposedly cheaper) middle<strike>man</strike>API. Til it falls and woops maybe chasing cheap fucks you in the long run. But hey, the investors made a profit! Who cares about the externalities.
scrubs 2y ago
@namaria Preach it!

moltar 2y ago

I’m not sure which country you are from. But not in every country you get a “service” from a bank. I know in Canada banks are terrible (oligopolies) and the UIs are from the early 2000s with insanely bad security practices, like 4 digit passwords and SMS-only 2FAs. I’d gladly use and even pay for good UX in Canada.

namaria 2y ago
The quality of a service provided is immaterial to the classification of an industry as 'service'.
rchaud 2y ago
what's "good UX" for banking in your opinion? I don't find it difficult to track my transactions, pay bills or make transfers with my banking app.

distances 2y ago

> When has banking not been a service? If I understood right, the product here was selling banking services to other companies to build their own products on top of that. That's not a "banking service" in the typical sense, and I think the naming is correct.

namaria 2y ago
> selling banking services > not a "banking service" You seem to have contradicted yourself. Banking is a service in every instance of the word "banking" here. Appending "as a service" doesn't add meaningful information, it just make technology people sound outta touch with the reality of other business domains.
- croes 2y ago
  It pretty simple. Banking service is the service of a bank. BaaS is the service of a middleman who sells the banking service of a bank to its customers. Synapse isn't a bank.
  - scrubs 2y ago
    Yah ... not a bank ... that makes it worse!
- distances 2y ago
  No, it differentiates actual banking services from a service sold for companies to build products upon, so likely a set of APIs. There needs to be different naming for these concepts, and BaaS is a good and descriptive name for it.
  - downvotetruth 2y ago
    BaaS is terribly ambiguous; "reseller" & "aggregator" are already used and well known in other industries. VCs with more money than brains just getting schooled trying to be hip.
  - namaria 2y ago
    What's wrong with calling baking software "baking software"? The "as-a-service" everything tag is become marketing hype. It is not meaningful analysis. But at this point we can just agree to disagree. I think adding 'as-a-service' to everything and trying to 'disrupt' everything makes us look bad. You may think it looks good. Matter of opinion.
    - distances 2y ago
      For me "banking software" would imply end user software you use for banking, either as a consumer or as a company. Not something to build upon. > Matter of opinion. Indeed, there's going to be different views on these things so let's leave it there.
    - 2y ago

wormius 2y ago

The better term is really "B2B" (Business to Business). I mean, yes, in the end it's going to an "end user" (ideally a specific entity) with a bank account... But the "services" are from these middlemen looking to take yet another cut so the bank can fire people to "save money" and spend it on the (supposedly cheaper) middle<strike>man</strike>API. Til it falls and woops maybe chasing cheap fucks you in the long run. But hey, the investors made a profit! Who cares about the externalities.

scrubs 2y ago

@namaria Preach it!