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Root — Programmable bank account for software developers
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Dre Durr💡
I have absolutely no idea what this is suppose to be doing. How can I code in money?
This is going to need a detailed explanation.
Your web page does not do a good job of explaining Root either.
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@dredurr Hey, Root is a bank account that has full API access, so you can use code to manage your money (send transfers, create new virtual cards, categorize transactions, etc)
@dredurr I think the reason I know what this was intuitively is because I've thought about how it should exist so often. I hope you're going to bring it to Canada.
Can I put an infinite loop on my money with an i++? 😂
Jokes apart, I signed up and looks like there's a waiting list? @louwhopley
This is crazy smart, do you have an article explaining why you've built that? Looking forward to playing with it!
@widawskij This might answer some/most of your questions: https://mybroadband.co.za/news/b...
@louwhopley I see. But why did you start from the backend in, why not the opposite direction? I think it's really interesting, just wondering why this approach considering the costs associated (to build a digital bank) which I mentioned above?
I have been looking for something like this. right now there is no easy way to know how much spendable money you have in a checking account when you use checks and people don't cash them for a while. I created an app that mimics a check book where you have to enter every transaction including ones that haven't gone through yet, but without a way to link the transactions to the actual bank account it is a pain to figure out if you missed one.
A great idea in theory, but might be even more powerful if they built minimal tools themselves, instead of letting everyone make their own. Simple or GoBank already have 'light weight' accounts, and they are real banks which I'd trust more, but their tools are really minimal too. If these guys could provide an interface into 10s of thousands of small US banks, that would be pretty kickass.
p.s. Shameless plug for the https://Emburse.com guys for anyone who wants programmable credit-cards. It's less risk and huge value-add for the business.
Rad. I've always wanted the ability to create virtual cards for everything online to mitigate fraud or even just to maintain control... But other services that offer this are all kind of sketchy. Excited to hear about other creative use cases that developers enable.
@ecwilson I've personally been using a separate virtual card for every online merchant, and it surely makes buying stuff at sketchy sites a lot more comfortable. Create a new card, limit it to the amount you're about to check out, and boom! :)
I'm looking forward to playing with this. I just noticed the tld is ZA, so even more stoked for you guys. Whats the timeline to hit the US? I noticed you guys partnered with Standard Bank, any early discussions with a US bank?
Gee hom gas!
@mitchellgeere We don't have a timeline for the US yet, but we'll keep everyone informed as we go :)
Thinking about it now, you could probably get more out of this if you don't strictly require coding skills. You just need a process flow builder, you can have precoded components that I could just drag in to create a particular logic for each account, card etc. without knowing code. So say a family or small business could sign-up and actually take advantage of the rules system. Employee spend limit to $X (RX*12 ;D) and only at certain retailers, same for child or husband etc. Love this for that.
@mitchellgeere Good Points. A setup similar to Zapier or IFTTT where you can do a good amount of programming without actually basing it on code
So many good 'tag line' puns for this if you bring this to Australia! (Note: Australian slang http://www.urbandictionary.com/d...)
As neat as it sounds, programmers are a small market. Can you create an IFTTT interface maybe? You could try and replicate their approach in a more secure manner but it's probably a lot of work to reimplement.
I thought product hunt didn't allow landing pages from being hunted. This doesn't seem fair to a lot of makers who hunted their landing pages in the past.
I've always wanted something like this. I want to give access to services like mint to my transaction history, but do not want to give them full access to my account. I imagine this would allow me to create a token with limited permissions for such situations!
Woah! Coolest idea I've seen for a while. Best of luck, and waiting to see when/how/if you make it to the NA market
@vict_r We've built in a sandbox to play around and test with before using your code on real money :) we're also busy working on a system to prevent the user from accidentally transferring money
@louwhopley let me know when you support US startup customers! Looks very cool.
@louwhopley If you've shut it down and moved onto insurance, why not contribute the core to OSS and let the spirit live on?