5 ms·

Debit bank accounts with Balanced Payments (YC W11)

29 points by forgingahead 14y ago

jareau 14y ago
(I'm a co-founder of Balanced) Here are some links to our docs: 1. Create a bank account: https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#creating-a-new-bank-account https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#crea... 1.1. You'll want to use balanced.js for this: https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/overview?language=bash#tokenizing-sensitive-information https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/overview?language=bash... 2. Bank account verification: https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#bank-account-verifications https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#bank... 3. Add bank account to an account: https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#adding-a-bank-account-to-an-account https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#addi... 4. Debit an account: https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#create-a-new-debit https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#crea... 5. Use callbacks so you know if the debit was successful: https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#events https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#even...
- epikur 14y ago
  The text rendering on the site doesn't look great for me in Windows 7/8 and Chrome/Firefox: http://i.imgur.com/ictFz0V.png http://i.imgur.com/ictFz0V.png
pulledpork 14y ago
The new homepage you dudes have is a big improvement. Why haven't you blogged about how you're previewing this stuff on GitHub? It's fun to watch a start up growing and changing there and I think it it's in really well with the MVP/agile mindset
- jareau 14y ago
  Thanks! We're hoping to blog about this soon. In the meantime, here's the github thread in which we discussed our new homepage design: https://github.com/balanced/balanced-api/issues/264 https://github.com/balanced/balanced-api/issues/264
- eberfreitas 14y ago
  It is great indeed. The only think that is not so cool for me is that the font rendering of 'Fanwood Text' is pretty bad on Win 7 Chrome 25.0.1364.97. But I love it. Just wish the font had a better rendering.
  - mjallday 14y ago
    Thanks for the feedback, we're *nix shop so I only tested it in browser shots to be honest (shame on me). I'll fire up a VM, check it out and try to find a good fallback or alternative for Windows.
jonemo 14y ago
Just in case somebody else living in ROTW was also wondering about availability, the most important piece of info for us is hidden here: https://www.balancedpayments.com/help#22654897 https://www.balancedpayments.com/help#22654897 "Sellers/merchants must reside in the US, have a US mailing address and a US bank account. Buyers can reside in nearly all countries and use any Visa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover card (debit and credit)." This isn't exactly a surprise, but I would really appreciate if you guys (and all the other payment processing services out there) could include this information a little more prominently.
- jareau 14y ago
  Sorry about this -- we didn't mean to be misleading. What do you think we could do to make our country limitations more prominent on our homepage? https://www.balancedpayments.com/#processing https://www.balancedpayments.com/#processing
  - nolok 14y ago
    If your visitor is not in the US, add a red text or something that says exactly the quote from parent ? I too was looking for it and ended up reading the HN comment to find the answer.
    - jareau 14y ago
      Thanks for the feedback
    - mahmoudimus 14y ago
      Yeah, this is a cool idea - will add it to our TODO
    - jonemo 14y ago
      Think about it this way: How would you like to find out that a really really rad service whose website you just found is only available in Liechtenstein and Iceland? That's how you want to present your geo-restriction. What parent suggests is a great idea but doesn't work by itself, because it doesn't work for everyone. I for example am physically located in the USA but I am still only interested in services that work in Germany. In addition to that scenario, I know plenty of people who could be your target audience and who obfuscate their physical location through proxies and VPNs, usually in order to use US-only services. I suggest you simply adding it to the text: Accept credit cards and debit bank accounts for your US-based business. Proceeds are available immediately. Notice the difference? If not, read again. Those who care will notice it, for all others it's two words they ignore.
Silhouette 14y ago
When I click the submitted link, pretty much the first thing I read says this: No PCI requirements Balanced is Level 1 PCI certified, so you can pass card data directly to us without worrying about compliance. I worry about services that say this sort of thing, because while they might well get away with it, it's still almost always wrong. I happen to think it would be immensely foolish of organisations like MasterCard or VISA to crack down on the new generation of low-friction, easy-setup card payment services who are helping businesses to accept card payments with minimal effort, because I think alienating them would do severe damage to the long term viability of the entire business model of such card payment schemes. However, we are talking about dinosaurs, and if you do incur their wrath it can be very damaging to your future business prospects, so jumping through the (much lesser) hoops they expect for businesses that outsource their payment collection might still be a wise move.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  > Balanced is Level 1 PCI certified, so you can pass card data directly to us without worrying about compliance. That's a perfectly valid statement. Typically the capture is done from the servers of the IPSP, not on the servers of the merchant. Hence the 'directly'.
  - Silhouette 14y ago
    You're covered by at least some of PCI DSS the moment any card data hits your network, so I fail to see how a business can be passing card data to Balanced at all without incurring some level of PCI DSS involvement. If what they actually meant was that customers would be sending their card data directly to Balanced and it wouldn't ever hit the other business's systems even transiently, that's a more interesting case. Even then, a lot of payment gateways that offer "hosted" facilities do still expect their clients to file a basic PCI DSS SAQ in our experience. (Just to be clear, I'm not expressing any views on how worthwhile or otherwise the entire PCI DSS scheme may be.)
    - JshWright 14y ago
      > If what they actually meant was that customers would be sending their card data directly to Balanced and it wouldn't ever hit the other business's systems even transiently, that's a more interesting case. Balanced seems to be following a model similar to Stripe where the payment details are indeed sent directly to them (via javascript in the browser, for the most common use case), and it never touches the merchant's servers.
chatmasta 14y ago
Is it just me or is Hacker News turning into an advertisement for Balanced Payments?

29 points by forgingahead 14y ago

(I'm a co-founder of Balanced) Here are some links to our docs: 1. Create a bank account: https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#creating-a-new-bank-account https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#crea... 1.1. You'll want to use balanced.js for this: https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/overview?language=bash#tokenizing-sensitive-information https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/overview?language=bash... 2. Bank account verification: https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#bank-account-verifications https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#bank... 3. Add bank account to an account: https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#adding-a-bank-account-to-an-account https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#addi... 4. Debit an account: https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#create-a-new-debit https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#crea... 5. Use callbacks so you know if the debit was successful: https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#events https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#even...

epikur 14y ago
The text rendering on the site doesn't look great for me in Windows 7/8 and Chrome/Firefox: http://i.imgur.com/ictFz0V.png http://i.imgur.com/ictFz0V.png

pulledpork 14y ago

The new homepage you dudes have is a big improvement. Why haven't you blogged about how you're previewing this stuff on GitHub? It's fun to watch a start up growing and changing there and I think it it's in really well with the MVP/agile mindset

jareau 14y ago
Thanks! We're hoping to blog about this soon. In the meantime, here's the github thread in which we discussed our new homepage design: https://github.com/balanced/balanced-api/issues/264 https://github.com/balanced/balanced-api/issues/264
eberfreitas 14y ago
It is great indeed. The only think that is not so cool for me is that the font rendering of 'Fanwood Text' is pretty bad on Win 7 Chrome 25.0.1364.97. But I love it. Just wish the font had a better rendering.
- mjallday 14y ago
  Thanks for the feedback, we're *nix shop so I only tested it in browser shots to be honest (shame on me). I'll fire up a VM, check it out and try to find a good fallback or alternative for Windows.

jonemo 14y ago

Just in case somebody else living in ROTW was also wondering about availability, the most important piece of info for us is hidden here: https://www.balancedpayments.com/help#22654897 https://www.balancedpayments.com/help#22654897 "Sellers/merchants must reside in the US, have a US mailing address and a US bank account. Buyers can reside in nearly all countries and use any Visa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover card (debit and credit)." This isn't exactly a surprise, but I would really appreciate if you guys (and all the other payment processing services out there) could include this information a little more prominently.

jareau 14y ago
Sorry about this -- we didn't mean to be misleading. What do you think we could do to make our country limitations more prominent on our homepage? https://www.balancedpayments.com/#processing https://www.balancedpayments.com/#processing
- nolok 14y ago
  If your visitor is not in the US, add a red text or something that says exactly the quote from parent ? I too was looking for it and ended up reading the HN comment to find the answer.
  - jareau 14y ago
    Thanks for the feedback
  - mahmoudimus 14y ago
    Yeah, this is a cool idea - will add it to our TODO
  - jonemo 14y ago
    Think about it this way: How would you like to find out that a really really rad service whose website you just found is only available in Liechtenstein and Iceland? That's how you want to present your geo-restriction. What parent suggests is a great idea but doesn't work by itself, because it doesn't work for everyone. I for example am physically located in the USA but I am still only interested in services that work in Germany. In addition to that scenario, I know plenty of people who could be your target audience and who obfuscate their physical location through proxies and VPNs, usually in order to use US-only services. I suggest you simply adding it to the text: Accept credit cards and debit bank accounts for your US-based business. Proceeds are available immediately. Notice the difference? If not, read again. Those who care will notice it, for all others it's two words they ignore.

Silhouette 14y ago

When I click the submitted link, pretty much the first thing I read says this: No PCI requirements Balanced is Level 1 PCI certified, so you can pass card data directly to us without worrying about compliance. I worry about services that say this sort of thing, because while they might well get away with it, it's still almost always wrong. I happen to think it would be immensely foolish of organisations like MasterCard or VISA to crack down on the new generation of low-friction, easy-setup card payment services who are helping businesses to accept card payments with minimal effort, because I think alienating them would do severe damage to the long term viability of the entire business model of such card payment schemes. However, we are talking about dinosaurs, and if you do incur their wrath it can be very damaging to your future business prospects, so jumping through the (much lesser) hoops they expect for businesses that outsource their payment collection might still be a wise move.

jacquesm 14y ago
> Balanced is Level 1 PCI certified, so you can pass card data directly to us without worrying about compliance. That's a perfectly valid statement. Typically the capture is done from the servers of the IPSP, not on the servers of the merchant. Hence the 'directly'.
- Silhouette 14y ago
  You're covered by at least some of PCI DSS the moment any card data hits your network, so I fail to see how a business can be passing card data to Balanced at all without incurring some level of PCI DSS involvement. If what they actually meant was that customers would be sending their card data directly to Balanced and it wouldn't ever hit the other business's systems even transiently, that's a more interesting case. Even then, a lot of payment gateways that offer "hosted" facilities do still expect their clients to file a basic PCI DSS SAQ in our experience. (Just to be clear, I'm not expressing any views on how worthwhile or otherwise the entire PCI DSS scheme may be.)
  - JshWright 14y ago
    > If what they actually meant was that customers would be sending their card data directly to Balanced and it wouldn't ever hit the other business's systems even transiently, that's a more interesting case. Balanced seems to be following a model similar to Stripe where the payment details are indeed sent directly to them (via javascript in the browser, for the most common use case), and it never touches the merchant's servers.

chatmasta 14y ago

Is it just me or is Hacker News turning into an advertisement for Balanced Payments?