Increase is a banking API company founded by former Stripe staff, with posts on API design, ISO 8583, and compliance.
HN commenters bring it up as a finance API similar to Column, made by former Stripe people, and note its landing page design.
Yes! We're obviously not the first to see the need!
I think there are many engineers who are frustrated knowing the data and capabilities that exist in banking that aren't exposed programmatically.
There are at least four (and I'm undoubtedly missing many!) interesting companies aiming to combine technology and a bank charter:
- Luna[0].
- M1 Finance[1].
- Column[2].
- Increase[3].
Building a bank involves reading, understanding, and respecting regulation. It invovles integrating with large financial networks. It involves rallying a team for a years-long adventure. Each of these is early days and it'll be a few years before any of us understands how this super large and important problem will be solved.
0. https://www.americanbanker.com/news/former-square-exec-leads-acquisition-of-community-bank
1. https://m1.com/blog/bank-and-board
2. https://column.com/
3. https://increase.com/
Yes, exactly, the important thing to us is that our users don't need to build an additional mental model between us and the networks we sit atop. If you know the network, we want you to be able to intuit how our API works. There's a very real difference (arguably the fundamental value-add of our company) in the transport layer, though. The actual mechanics of integrating with, say, FedACH, are a bit long to get into here (we get into it a bit here if it's of interest: https://increase.com/documentation/fedach) but suffice to say it doesn't have a REST API.
from TOS [0]:
Increase is not a chartered depository institution. We work with our partner banks to provide depository and payment services. When you open an Increase account, you agree to the Increase Terms of Service below. When you use the Increase service to set up a deposit account, the account is with First Internet Bank or Blue Ridge Bank and is subject to your agreement with the Bank Terms below. Finally, Increase's use of your personal information is described in the Privacy Policy below.
[0] https://increase.com/terms
From their docs [1] it looks like they do everything using integers: the amounts are integers in the "minor unit" of currency, for example cents if the currency is dollars. So 1000 means $10.00. In languages like JavaScript where everything is a float64, you can still accurately represent integers up to 2^53, which would be $90 trillion.
[1] https://increase.com/documentation/api#transactions
> His early work on those Stripe landing pages, like Checkout, was ahead of the time.
In what way? Is there an example of this?
> You can see his latest work at https://increase.com, another finance API.
Interesting how they achieved the three gradient blocks with the angled corners. And the mockup of the app isn't an image - it's actually done in HTML.
Maybe try requesting an invite to Increase:
https://increase.com/
In private beta right now but hopefully it could fit your use-case.
Created by amazingly talented team including several former Stripes to boot!