
“Banclist.com is probably the most lucrative direct messaging platform” - evilsimon
https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1141937787442098176
======
mlacks
It actually was a little difficult to figure out what this business is about
from their website, but their LinkedIn is comprehensive enough:

“Overview

Non-publicly held banks are facing increasing risks when they maintain a
private list of their shareholders. Sharing unpublished information about the
bank’s stock with a few shareholders exposes the bank, its management and
directors to potentially serious liability. Simply answering one shareholder’s
question without notifying every shareholder with the same information puts
the bank at risk. The threat and penalty of litigation can affect the bank’s
reputation and financial performance. In some cases banks can face civil and
criminal penalties.

One of the fastest growing bank services companies today, BancList (BL)
provides privately held financial institutions and their shareholders (and
other authorized users) with an easy-to-use web-based posting service that
replaces the list. BL lets shareholders post notices of their intent to buy or
sell their bank stock and keeps the bank out of the negotiation process – the
way transactions are supposed to occur.

Not only does BL provide a risk mitigation service for banks by replacing the
list, it helps banks enhance shareholder value and provides banks with even
more information about what is happening with their shares. BL bank clients
receive automatic email alerts every time someone posts a notice, which keeps
them aware of active negotiations.

BL is not a broker dealer and does not ask for a list of your shareholders. BL
never interferes with the relationship between bank clients and their
shareholders. BL does not collect broker fees for its services. BL clients pay
an annual subscription fee based on the asset size of the financial
institution.”

Very cool something of this scope operates with only a handful of employees.

[0][https://www.linkedin.com/company/communitybanklist](https://www.linkedin.com/company/communitybanklist)

~~~
Trombone12
To me the scope seems rather narrow, and the technical requirements about on
par with a mailing list.

~~~
scarejunba
Their sole innovation over that is that they realized neutrality and being a
third party is valuable because of regulation. Haha, this is pretty clever.

~~~
FabHK
Similarly, there is a business computing custom indices that a bank uses in
products. The bank is perfectly capable of computing the index itself, but it
needs to be handled by a third party that is paid handsomely to just re-
calculate what the bank already calculated.

~~~
adw
One example of that is Markit Group, which had revenue of _$1.5bn /yr_ when it
merged with IHS in 2016 at an implied valuation of roughly $5.5bn. Best London
startup of the last 25 years, including DeepMind, not close.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markit)

Being a trusted third party is frequently an amazing business, if you can earn
or negotiate your way there.

------
hirundo
> Thus BancList (spelling absolutely intentional, because even the K is
> regulated and I am absolutely not joking about that fact).

No, he's not joking. Even the font size is regulated. I ran into that as an
employee of a commodities trader. I'm not sure if the choice of font is
regulated but it wouldn't be surprising.

~~~
wmil
A bit of a tangent, but in Canada "financial advisers" are regulated and
required to act in the customers interests. So naturally banks will connect
you to "financial advisors" (unregulated) to buy products.

[https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-watchdog-
advise...](https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-watchdog-adviser-
advisor-1.4049326)

~~~
mstibbard
FYI financial advisers having a fiduciary duty to their clients is standard in
most of the western world EXCEPT America.

------
csomar
> In "Goodness that is a great, great software business", I present
> [http://banclist.com](http://banclist.com) , which is probably the most
> lucrative direct messaging platform in the world on a per user basis. (I'm
> exempting e.g. Bloomberg which does a lot more than DMs.)

That's some hyperbole from Patrick. The website is not a direct messaging
platform by any stretch. It's a listing website with a very specific audience.
Lots of that stuff happen over email, regular DM, phone calls or regular in-
persons meetups.

> BancList.com does not participate in any way in the execution of trades. Any
> trades that may occur must take place offline independent of BancList.com or
> any of its affiliates.

They only risk getting their data compromised but no money is at risk. Trades
happen discretely and they might not be aware of them or not care.

------
driverdan
> Apache/2.4.6 (CentOS) OpenSSL/1.0.1e-fips mod_fcgid/2.3.9 PHP/5.4.16
> mod_python/3.5.0- Python/2.7.5

Eek! I wouldn't trust them with my data if I was a bank. They haven't updated
their server since 2013. All of the versions listed in that header have major
vulns. This is a disaster waiting to happen.

~~~
avip
It seems dir listing is not properly disabled
[https://banclist.com/app/webroot/img/](https://banclist.com/app/webroot/img/)

~~~
dflock
It it now, by the look of it.

~~~
avip
Not an expert but I don't think it's considered good practice to expose your
directory structure like that. It should have been 404 or redirection to
/home.

------
StavrosK
> I imagine there was very little knocking on doors; founding team just called
> up everyone in their Rolodex, and after that point it's viral since the
> population of people who want to buy or sell one of 100 local banks
> definitely are interested in the 101st.

Ah, another company I could never ever have founded because its success
explicitly depends on who you know.

------
staunch
Seems like we're missing a "StocList" for buying/selling shares in private
companies. There are some "secondary market" services. But (IIRC) they all
take a hefty cut from both parties, have zero transparency, act as an
intermediary, have high minimum transactions, etc.

Seems like accredited investors and private company stock owners should be
able to make deals directly. Someone get on it!

~~~
javert
> There are some "secondary market" services. But (IIRC) they all take a hefty
> cut from both parties, have zero transparency, act as an intermediary, have
> high minimum transactions, etc.

Does anyone know of any such services that are reputable and worth using? Even
if it's expensive. Kind of to be expected in that field.

~~~
_1tan
A few are mentioned here: [https://www.holloway.com/g/equity-
compensation/sections/can-...](https://www.holloway.com/g/equity-
compensation/sections/can-you-sell-private-stock).

~~~
javert
Cool!

~~~
_1tan
There is also [https://carta.com/](https://carta.com/) which eventually
thrives to become a private market: [https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/06/carta-
was-just-valued-at-1...](https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/06/carta-was-just-
valued-at-1-7-billion-by-andreessen-horowitz-in-a-deal-some-see-as-rich/).

------
ForHackernews
Are there any effective strategies for searching out profitable parasitic
niches like this? Looking around the corners of big heavily regulated
industries? Healthcare, real estate, finance?

~~~
ransford
Immersion. Work in the industry at a position where you're likely to encounter
inefficiencies. In healthcare, for example, you can't spit without hitting an
optimization opportunity. Working midlevel can mean you get to see low-level
workers hacking around bureaucracy _and_ management wringing their hands about
money and budgets and such.

Taking a job in an industry to get access to its seedy underbelly isn't super
appealing to most founders, but for some ossified industries there's really no
other way to find those golden opportunities.

Oh, and be patient. Practice being a mouthless set of ears.

------
gopi
More info - [http://www.venturenashville.com/fintech-seed-stage-
banclist-...](http://www.venturenashville.com/fintech-seed-stage-banclist-
pops-up-in-nashville-eyes-capital-raise-cms-1050)

------
honopu
How would one even know this? Do they run billing through stripe, and if so
did he see the numbers? How would you know how lucrative this is?

------
gculliss
This hyperbolic introduction is like saying Ford sells the most expensive
tires on the planet.

------
justinjlynn
I would say that SWIFT international financial messaging platform most likely
beats it, in terms of lucrativeness, and - amusingly - it is also in the same
industrial sector.

------
arianestrasse
That website looks like an affiliate marketing cash grab site from the early
2000s. I know that I should probably do some proper research but it was so
off-putting that I'm just going to give up right away and call it a waste of
time and/or a scam.

~~~
rolltiide
> That website looks like an affiliate marketing cash grab site from the early
> 2000s

it also doesn't matter when a user engagement ponzi scheme isn't how you plan
to cash out of your company

------
tryptophan
This is an example of what happens when a field is over-regulated.

You have these obtuse solutions working around a problem that is only hard
because of lawyers and 500 regulations to "protect investors".

People were able to hack together exchanges for crypto-coins. The only thing
that stands in the way of doing this for private stock/tiny companies is
excessive regulation. I'm not saying we want the whole crypto experience of
exchanges blowing up overnight, but what we have now is clearly not right
either.

~~~
eridius
What about BancList indicates that the field is over-regulated

~~~
saagarjha
The fact that it's called "BancList"?

~~~
eridius
That just indicates that it's regulated. Where's the "over" part?

Personally, it sounds like a rather good idea to have regulation over who's
allowed to use the word "bank", given the assumptions that the general public
will make about anything with "bank" in the name.

~~~
mdpopescu
What stops the general public from making the same assumptions about anything
with "banc" in the name?

~~~
eridius
Probably the same thing that stops them from assuming that anything with
"spank" in the name is a reputable financial institution.

