
Digital Checks (not echecks) – better than ACH for sending money - zengr
https://techcrunch.com/2016/03/01/checkbook-io/
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stilt
We are using Checkbook.io for collecting payments from our customers.

I like the product because it helps to reduce the friction for us. CB team is
proactive in adding features and getting back to us with our queries and
doubt. I think this product is having a lot of potentials.

Good luck with the product!!!

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zacharycollins
We're using Checkbook.io for our online ticket sales company that's aimed at
K-12 performing arts. We offer two options: Stripe and paper checks. The
reason we have to offer paper checks is because many of these PA programs are
forbidden to connect bank accounts per their school rules. Over 60% of our
programs are not able to use Stripe for direct deposit.

Now we're able to either send them a digital or physical check automatically
via Checkbook's API. It works flawlessly and saves us a lot of time!

Plus they have awesome support. A+ team.

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pjg
Disclaimer: I work for Checkbook.io

The problem we are trying to solve is paper Checks are still being to pay
individuals/businesses. ACH doesn't work for paying out because the recipient
needs to verify account (a painful process if micro-deposits are being used )
and there is a delay of 3 business days. Credit Cards charge 2.9%+ which
doesn't scale for larger transactions.

Having a simple solution that can disburse funds overnight to the recipient
with having to send out paper, sign up for some service or pay 2.9% is what we
are building

Different than the traditional echecks since it allows instant verification
and works with bank accounts that may not be ACH enabled e.g. Money Market
Accounts, Small Banks/Credit Unions that may not be ACH enabled

~~~
superuser2
I don't mean to engage in gratuitous negativity, I really don't, but nothing
about this makes sense to me.

Looking at the rest of the thread, this seems like a credible offering from
credible people, but the reasons you've given don't align at all with my
experience using the banking system.

>ACH doesn't work for paying out because the recipient needs to verify account

CapitalOne, Volkswagen Credit, and my university all gladly pull my money over
ACH with just an account/routing number submitted over a web form and no
verification process. CapitalOne clears overnight.

The requirement on recipients to verify account ownership, if it exists, is
violated in vanilla transactions with vanilla consumers at massive scale every
single day by household names. I have a hard time believing the banking
industry would institute a requirement and then let everyone flaunt it like
that.

>Small Banks/Credit Unions that may not be ACH enabled

 _Really_? Is that a thing? I have seen checking account offerings missing all
sorts of things - branches, mobile apps, online banking, bill pay gateways,
even check-writing capability - but ACH is the one true constant.

Some institutional payees like CapitalOne and Comcast won't even process a
check as a check, they'll take the account/routing number and do it over ACH
instead. Lots of employers also won't cut checks - it's either ACH or a shitty
debit card loaded with fees.

People using non-ACH-capable banks were left out in the cold by everyone else
years ago; I'm surprised there's a business in accommodating them.

~~~
pjg
Your point about CapitalOne, Volkswagen Credit, and your university sending
you money with Routing Number and Account Number is just fine. You have a
relationship with them.

Try sending ACH to your landlord or your Gardner or DMV. Or that class action
settlement Check you received - why didn't they just ACH it to you ? In the
former case - entities don't want to give out financial info to people they
don't know. Even if they do how do you plan to initiate an ACH to your
Landlord ? In the latter i.e. a business or an individual trying to pay you
must go through an extensive process to collect your bank account info, that's
assuming you are willing to part with it.Donald Knuth doesn't write Checks for
this reason: [http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/news08.html](http://www-
cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~uno/news08.html)

About ACH not being ubiquitous. Try ACH'ing from/to your Money Market account.
There are over 100 million of them in the US. It won't work. Small Banks and
Credit Unions - yes appx 12% of Credit Unions are not ACH enabled (stats are
behind the NCUA firewall ). Just because large banks in large metros use ACH
ubiquitously does not imply universality. But regardless that's just one point
for one demographic. The big picture is getting payments without sharing bank
info.

About your point about CapitalOne and Comcast not processing a Check as Check
- that has been around for decades. Truncating a paper Check to ACH
transaction to get rid of paper. We are going one step further. Not generating
paper Check to begin with. If there is no paper Check there is _no need_ to
convert (i.e. truncate in bankers parlance) to ACH i.e. saves another step in
the process and makes it more efficient

This is not about non-ACH banks, its about getting rid of 3 day ACH delay and
building an experience where anyone can send a payment to anyone else without
signing up, without going thru the cumbersome bank UI/UX, without sharing
their bank account info and have it delivered in their mailbox. Free for
individuals (up to 25 Checks) and businesses pay $1/Check.

~~~
superuser2
>without sharing their bank account info

You should probably lead with this, because it wasn't clear until you stated
it there. The parent comment made it sound like the problem you're solving is
inability to just use people's self-reported account numbers in ACH without a
verification process. This seemed strange, because companies do that already.

Doing something like ACH, but without leaking either party's account number to
the other, is more interesting.

Regarding landlords, the property management company that owns most of my
neighborhood asks for checking account/routing numbers from a web portal, just
like CapitalOne and VW. The DMV dictates the forms of payment it will accept;
it's not up to the customer to pick a payment service. They need a check or
credit card in hand at the counter. I dunno about gardeners. If it were
informal enough, I'd probably use Venmo. I'm not sure why asking him to give
Checkbook the necessary information to actually remit the payment is any
different from asking him to sign up for Venmo. (Maybe it is?)

>its about getting rid of 3 day ACH delay

For the companies I mentioned, the payment is always credited to my bill (and
taken from my bank account) the next morning. I only experience the 3-day
delay using the "transfer between linked accounts" features at my banks. I've
read elsewhere that this delay is introduced by the banks as an anti-fraud
mechanism, not an actual technical limitation.

If I pay someone using, say, Venmo, if they immediately hit "cashout" they
will have the money in their bank the next day.

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apoorv9990
I tried using this to pay my rent. The key is the recipient didn't need to
sign up for anything - they were verified instantly. They also claim to
transfer funds overnight for businesses but I haven't tried that yet.

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nikolay
The article and the website tell different info - TechCrunch says it's free up
to 50 checks per year; the website - that it's free up to 25 checks. Then,
it's $1/check, I assume, as there's no info for pricing for individuals.
$1/check is too much - both for business and individual use, but especially
for businesses! Plus, I don't see how is this better than ACH as most probably
it's using ACH underneath unlike, let's say, Dwolla.

~~~
pjg
The website has the most current info and it says explicitly 25Checks/Annually
free for Individuals and after that $1/Check. Businesses pay $1/Check.
Recipients of the Checks pay nothing, only the originator does.

We use both ACH as well as Check21 (which is a different network than ACH) and
this allows us to do overnight credits. ACH Debits take 2-3 working days
whereas Check21 can be overnight.

This avoids two problems with ACH i.e. account verification and 3 day delay in
addition to some bank accounts not being ACH enabled.

~~~
nikolay
So, basically, after the article, you halved the number of free checks - great
strategy. Not!

~~~
zacharycollins
So they're never able to update their pricing because they were featured on
TC? Makes no sense.

~~~
nikolay
TechCrunch published the article, I read it a few minutes later, visited the
site, and the pricing was hiked 100% essentially. So lame! So immature! With
this attitude, they will be out of business not so far from now!

~~~
pjg
The pricing on TC article is $1/Check for businesses and its the _same_ on our
site. For Individuals the feedback we got is most individuals are not writing
more than 2-3 Checks per month and that's what it is on the website i.e. 25
Checks free annually.

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ghall
The year is 2016. Glad to see somebody is disrupting checks!

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zengr
I did some work for this startup - crazy smart team and solving hard FinTech
problems. Definitely a company to look out for in the near future.

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teded32
Go checkbook

