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Ask HN: How do you build a payments app like Venmo?

15 points by idax ↗ HN
I understand the MSB MTL side of the business and the regulatory barriers of entry, but how difficult is it to create a payments application that allows businesses to perform Bank Transfers and Credit/Debit transfers between two parties?

10 comments

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idax
Any payments developers out there? What does it take to connect to different banking systems to transfer funds and how do you go about it?
masudrhossain
Building from scratch or using an API?

You can use plaid.com for that. It also integrates with stripe.com pretty well too.

idax
Ideally building from scratch because the platform relys on taking a small percentage of each transaction for revenue.
idax
Plaid seems like an incredible company, going this route would save a huge amount of engineering initially, but would cut into revenues. I might explore this further. Thanks!
pepper_sauce
If you're in the EU, read up on PSD2. It's opening up payments significantly.
idax
US Based, but I read an article about it. Pretty interesting.
wilde
How much are you willing to spend per transaction? With Stripe or Braintree it’s trivial but expensive.

Are you targeting just the US market and dollars? Going directly with a bank is cheaper but more complex [1]. And unless you’re adding significant value you’ll probably need a money transmitter license in your state.

And if you’re planning on letting any asshole on the internet use this, you need an anti-fraud strategy because settlement times are measured in days and there are plenty of ways that money can be sent but never refunded.

Good luck!

[1] http://engineering.gusto.com/how-ach-works-a-developer-persp...

idax
Thanks for this. That link is extremely helpful and goes in depth to the ACH Networks from a developers perspective. Cheers!
JJE_Cassinfo
Cass is an agile bank /fintech that you may be able to partner with for cost effective access to the ACH network. We support payments for various marketplaces. (Disclaimer: I work for Cass.)
ziyadparekh
Hi I did this for Pakistan.

Https://getsafepay.com

We partnered with a bank and built a custome Cybersource integration that supports visa and MasterCard cards

Let me know if you have questions