
GoCardless launches US debit payments solution - jbernardo95
https://techcrunch.com/2019/09/17/goamerica/
======
deergomoo
I recently did a very small integration with GoCardless: just a one-page
registration form that then redirected out to them to capture direct debit
details.

I was very pleasantly surprised that I, as an individual developer, was able
to access all their documentation and sign up for a Sandbox API key very
quickly and painlessly. I didn’t have to tie to the the real company account
in any way (which I was still waiting on details for at the time).

It’s disappointing how rare it can be to not have to jump through any hoops.

~~~
Torakfirenze
Wow, that's awesome! I've found sometimes the "verification" process of
getting access to dev-docs and API keys etc. a bit of a ball-ache in the past
with some providers too.

What was the integration itself like in the end? Good docs/sensible API?

~~~
pbowyer
My experience differs from others here. I did an integration for a national
charity.

A simple integration is straightforward; however if you want to test all
permutations possible the support is lacking.

The different documentation (their "turoial" ones, the API docs, and their
helpdesk documents) contradicted at times.

But the testing story was the worst part. In the end we took a "Run in
production, save all GoCardless events, replay and test/correct the behaviour
based on them". This was the only way we were able to get all expected
properties in uncommon cases e.g. where a supporter used the Current Account
Switching Service, so the DD was migrated to a new bank account.

An easier way to set up the scenarios, to mock all cases, and to re-run them
would be appreciated. In their sandbox, you have to wait in realtime for the
next DD collection to occur.

I find most payment processors not brilliant at supporting automated testing,
but at least the number of card numbers etc that Stripe, Braintree et al have
allow easy testing of any flows.

~~~
jbernardo95
Hi Peter!

I'm an engineer at GC and regarding your comment on testing/mocking we do have
a tool to help with that: [https://developer.gocardless.com/getting-
started/developer-t...](https://developer.gocardless.com/getting-
started/developer-tools/scenario-simulators/)

Maybe this is hidden/not clear in the documentation.

I'll pass this feedback to our API team.

~~~
pbowyer
I know about the scenario simulation, and when I have corresponded with the
support team it is where they have pointed me. This in spite of saying I have
read it and explained why it isn't doing what we're after.

In its current form, it is not adequate. We have to manually set up the
resource to run it on. Once run, there is no easy reset, to re-run it (if, for
example, the response was handled incorrectly).

It can be argued that mocking all behaviours should be carried out our side
and not involve the GoCardless sandbox. I am open to that, but note we have
not seen any existing libraries handling this.

And the behaviour of other payment processors suggests this is not the most
common approach to take.

Edit: As samples of all events/payloads are not present, we have to record
production data first in order to get the data we can use in our mocking and
testing.

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PedroBatista
Been using GoCardless for a couple years now they have been great.

The API is simple enough and does exactly what one would expect, Stripe used
to be like this but right now is a complete clusterf"#%k, they have so many
"products" that they've become the quintessential example of feature creep.

I have the idea that the US is the Mecca of credit cards, how widespread is
the usage of Direct Debit in the US?

~~~
ShteiLoups
Funny that "the US is the Mecca of credit cards" but touch-less payment is
still so rare.

~~~
itsbrad
I was there recently and people seemed blown away at my instinct to pay by
contactless card payment. At one or two shops, the staff member serving me
commented on how rare it was to see a customer do that. ️

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disintegrator
Hey folks, here is our blog post with the launch announcement which contains
some more details about ACH uptake in the US and its benefits:
[https://gocardless.com/blog/introducing-us-payments-with-
goc...](https://gocardless.com/blog/introducing-us-payments-with-gocardless/)

------
SoulMan
Is there UPI[1] equivalent in the USA? You can basically transfer from any
bank to any bank account without Netanking or even internet

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface)

~~~
xyst
This seems similar to Zelle. Used to facilitate p2p payments. I have used it
with family members and the transactions take <1 minute to complete.

------
xyst
Isn’t ACH slow though? I have personally used ACH to transfer between personal
bank accounts and it usually takes 2-3 days for each transaction to complete.

Also a 1% transaction fee for something that takes 2-3 days to process seems
very high. Companies already have a business checking account, why can’t I use
that account to process the ACH transactions?

If US banks got their head out of their ass they could leverage their existing
ACH infrastructure and include it as a low cost way to process transactions
(static fee of a few cents).

