Developer-Friendly Banks? 158
tyen writes "Any suggestions for a 'developer-friendly' bank for small businesses? The banking world is awash in data protocols that business customers who are/have coders would find useful, like BAI to extract all the raw data from an ACH or SWIFT transfer. Unfortunately, the ones I have spoken with about this access are still stuck in the Dark Ages of computing; they price the access like only big companies still have the skills to tap into these interfaces. For example, one of the four US banks with a perfect trading record this past quarter quoted us USD five figures for access to several of our accounts via BAI format. Per year. After waiving sign-up fees. Are there any banks out there that have a more progressive attitude about letting small, entrepreneurial developers work with their business accounts in a more modern, dare we say automated, way? With big businesses demanding EFT integration from small business vendors, and globalization rewarding premiums to nimble, lean businesses that automate wherever possible, automating the retrieval of this information (which is not available in consumer-oriented access like OFX) becomes an increasingly pressing issue for the small guys."
"Friendly" and "Bank" in the same sentence? (Score:4, Funny)
Sounds like an oxymoron to me.
Re:"Friendly" and "Bank" in the same sentence? (Score:2, Funny)
A friendly bank is one who uses lube before they bend you over, isn't it?
Be careful with BAI (Score:5, Funny)
I overheard this conversation between some programmers in my company about BAI, It was pretty heated. What I namely remember is:
Ok! Ok! I must have, I must have put a decimal point in the wrong place
or something. Shit. I always do that. I always mess up some mundane detail.
I can't remember what happened to them... It was around the time that we had a big fire at our main office.
Re:Ha! It's worse in Canada (Score:3, Funny)
Ironically in the security guide section it lists getting software updates as key to your computer's security.
Re:Use a swissbank (Score:2, Funny)
Not really. That %$@%$# bubble will catch you.
Re:"Friendly" and "Bank" in the same sentence? (Score:3, Funny)
They are located next door to the consumer friendly movie studio.
Re:Banksimple (Score:1, Funny)
Looks pretty legit. They just bagged a major twitter developer: http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/17/alex-payne-twitter/