
Send money to debit cards - tweakz
https://stripe.com/blog/send-money-to-debit-cards
======
ianhawes
Balanced Payments' implementation[0] recently went into private beta.
Interesting to note that between Stripe and Balanced, their fees are typically
the same, however an important difference here is that Balanced is charging
$1.00 versus 25c at Stripe.

[0] [https://www.balancedpayments.com/push-to-
card](https://www.balancedpayments.com/push-to-card)

~~~
steveklabnik
Yeah, unfortunately, Balanced doesn't have the same warchest that Stripe does,
as they've raised way more funding than we are, so we can't use any of that
money to price stuff mega cheap.

There are also multiple ways to build this kind of feature. Balanced is doing
it 'the right way,' but you can fake it till you make it, and hope that
Visa/MC doesn't get mad at you before you build out the real implementation.
That way is also cheaper...

As an example of the benefit of 'the right way,' Balanced will be immediate
for a large percentage of cards, rather than the 1-2 days that this page
claims.

~~~
kmf
What is "the right way", if you're allowed to disclose that? I remember that
Square Cash was doing their transfer feature using refunds[1], is that the
same way that Stripe is doing it?

[1]: [http://jonbwhite.tumblr.com/post/66853226398/how-square-
move...](http://jonbwhite.tumblr.com/post/66853226398/how-square-moves-cash)

~~~
steveklabnik
"Unreferenced refunds" are the 'wrong way': the card networks don't like it
for various reasons. ATM networks are starting to offer an API that just does
this, which is the 'right way.' Visa OCT was mentioned elsewhere in this
thread, for example. This means you have to integrate with a patchwork of
different networks if you want to have good coverage.

I don't have any special insight into how Stripe is doing it, but the
extremely low cost and the '1-2 days' sounds like unreferenced refunds. I
could be wrong.

~~~
invisible
On a tangent: why does the wrong way cost less money than the right way? Is
this a form of price fixing by the credit card companies? I'd imagine Visa
could offer these at less money (or free) than MC but it sounds like that's
not the case.

~~~
steveklabnik
I don't have an enormous amount of insight into this, but what I can tell you
is that in this industry, pricing is all about risk. The reason unreferenced
refunds are cheap is because you're exploiting a loophole in the API,
basically. The reason they don't like it is that it messes with fraud
calculations, which messes with risk.

The 'right way' is basically a new product, in my understanding and so, like
any product, they charge what the market will bear.

------
johne20
Is there a transaction/monthly dollar limit to the amount you can send this
way?

~~~
Consultant32452
Can I send money from my credit card to my debit card? Because that's how you
get frequent flier miles. Lots and lots of frequent flier miles.

~~~
jamesbrownuhh
One major bank set up an online payment service in the UK about ten years ago
which allowed you to load money, fee-free, from a credit card, and then pay
other people. Of course, said money, once loaded, could also be withdrawn back
to your bank account, but why would anyone do that?

WHILE airmiles < MAXINT do { load, withdraw, pay card bill }

Round and round the money goes. :)

Obviously the fee-free aspect was unusual, perhaps an oversight but more
likely an attempt to get some critical mass in the online payments market
which, at the time, was primarily only PayPal and a UK outfit called "NoChex"
(which of course DID charge a fee.)

Eventually a loading fee did arrive, and a little later on, the service closed
up shop entirely.

~~~
jedberg
When the dollar coin was first introduced in the US, you could order them
online for no extra cost, as a way of increasing adoption. There would be a
$1000 charge on your credit card, and 1000 coins would show up at your door
(shipping was free too).

A lot of airline miles were earned at the expense of the US government.

~~~
jusben1369
Well really at the expense of the airlines right?

~~~
oh_sigh
No, at the expense of the US tax payer, who paid for the credit card
processing fee and free shipping through the US mint.

~~~
thatthatis
More accurately, at the expense of us currency holders. The mint is self-
finaning.

The cost to the mint to produce a coin is far less than the face value.

Whether anyone was actually hurt depends on how the cost to distribute this
way compares to the normal cost to distribute new currency.

And, assuming this method was more expensive, calculating who was hurt and by
how much would take me a few hours. Maybe someone else has that more on the
top of their head.

------
bnzelener
I read that Square Cash uses a credit card refund protocol to send money to
debit cards so quickly. Is this the same mechanism?

~~~
timdorr
Given that Stripe charges the same fee as an ACH transfer, it sounds like
Visa/MC has given them some sort of API to convert a debit card number to ABA
routing/account numbers.

~~~
boling11
There's no way to map debit card numbers to routing/account numbers (afaik).
They're probably using the ATM network primarily and another method if it's
not supported.

~~~
jareau
(I'm a co-founder of Balanced, a payments company also building push to card
(p2c) functionality [1])

    
    
        > There's no way to map debit card numbers to routing/account numbers (afaik).
    

You're correct.

    
    
        > They're probably using the ATM network primarily and another method if it's not supported.
    

Based on the settlement times advertised, it looks like Stripe is simply
performing "unreferenced refunds" to debit cards, rather than using the
various ATM networks to push funds out to cards. If they were using the ATM
networks, you could expect sub-10 min settlement times.

[1] [https://www.balancedpayments.com/push-to-
card](https://www.balancedpayments.com/push-to-card)

~~~
mentat
Sub-10 min settlement times for what sorts of messages? You're seeing 220s
land in that amount of time?

~~~
jareau
I mean, the funds will be available for use in the recipients bank account
within 10 minutes. The API call to perform this operation will have much lower
latency than that. Did I understand your questions correctly?

~~~
mentat
I current deal with ISO messages for debit cards a bit so I was more asking
about the underlying protocol messages involved.

------
iLoch
Wow this is awesome. I recently decided to go with Stripe, and this news is
only adding on to the positive experience I've had so far. Great work Stripe
team, keep it up!

------
ihaveqvestion
Why don't Balanced and Stripe work together on these features? I understand
that they're competitors, but it seems as though we've got good engineers in
both companies needlessly duplicating effort. Why not work together to provide
this feature and spend that limited engineering time, expertise, and
innovation on the things which differentiate the service? Stripe and Balanced
aren't direct competitors, I think - why not work together on the common
ground and use the time saved to make the differences really shine?

[I think I'm being overly utopian, but I don't understand why. Can someone
explain it to me?]

~~~
treeface
For the same reason most companies don't share trade secrets.

\- Stripe and Balanced ARE direct competitors, much more so than say Stripe
and Braintree or Balanced and PayPal. Balanced handles the money in a bit of a
different way, but the end product is very similar (i.e. receive payments from
cards and bank accounts, and send payments to bank accounts [and now debit
cards for both as well]).

\- One or both companies may feel they have the better solution (see
steveklabnik's comment above), and thus collaborating would be giving away
intellectual capital for less in return

As a potential customer, you should prefer that they do work separately,
because when different teams come up with different solutions, the chances are
greater that at least one of those solutions is correct. This leads to greater
long-term health in the industry as a whole.

------
sturgill
I was excited when I read about this when Balanced launched their beta of this
same feature, and I'm equally as excited to read about it WRT Stripe. The
competition in this space has provided some wonderful innovations in a very
short period of time.

I had to do some integration with Authorize.net some months ago and had
terrible flashbacks to the late 90's / early 00's when they were the only real
player in the game for self-hosted checkouts. Reading Authorize.net
documentation does not invoke happy feelings.

~~~
steveklabnik
> The competition in this space has provided some wonderful innovations in a
> very short period of time.

This is absolutely true! Let's do a feature comparison of when Balanced and
Stripe have launched some new features:

    
    
                                    Balanced    Stripe
            MP payments             11/16/12    2/24/14
            ACH Payouts             2/14/13     6/24/13
            Push to Card            1/24/14     5/22/14
            Bitcoin                 2/20/14     3/27/14
            ACH Debits              2/28/13     (in private beta)
            metadata                11/16/12    10/30/13
            auth/capture            11/16/12    6/20/13
            same-day payouts        2/25/13     (2 day payouts in private beta)
            Dynamic Soft Descriptor 11/16/12    3/14/14
    

Everyone wins.

It's tough because we (I've actually just left Balanced, and, in the interest
of full disclosure, have been a Stripe customer for a few years) are so open,
our roadmap is basically public. Today is the day we originally said we'd
launch production push to card, not beta, so it's fun to see Stripe launch
this feature today.

~~~
pc
Hm. There are actually a bunch of inaccuracies in the above, but I don't think
there's much point arguing about the details -- specifics aside, I agree that
Balanced has quickly launched some cool stuff. Congrats on your time at
Balanced and good luck with whatever comes next!

~~~
steveklabnik
Thanks Patrick! And thanks for Stripe: it's great that you all kicked off this
'let's make a better payments API' space. And giving people good APIs in
general.

------
ChuckMcM
I wonder if banks will close this loophole where anyone can effectively
"refund" a debit card as a negative cash transaction. (that is without a
matching purchase transaction).

I saw an option to 'send cash' on Hangouts the other day so I presume Google
is A/B testing this as well. (Don't get me started on the notion of hangouts
where you can send the other person cash, it seems a bit too attractive to the
webporn crowd).

~~~
mason55
_> it seems a bit too attractive to the webporn crowd_

Why is this a bad thing? Two adults participating in a consensual tranasction

~~~
droopyEyelids
Because people are more likely to do things the easier they are, and sex stuff
is one of the few ways it's easy for young people to make money.

Due to a confluence of perverse incentives across many facets of life, this
becomes part of a sales funnel that recruits young people to the sex industry.

~~~
genericuser
Because you believe the sex industry itself is bad? Or because specific
companies and members of the sex industry are bad, and you are generalizing?

~~~
droopyEyelids
In many cases sex work is not a physically or emotionally healthy way to
support yourself.

In every case it is a limited career that does not scale with age, while
inculcating habits and attitudes that make traditional employment or switching
industries difficult.

~~~
yogo
Couldn't you say the same thing about many jobs out there that are legitimate?

~~~
jordigh
Yes, but they come up less frequently in discussions because they're less
prevalent. Anyone can have sex, but fewer people can do something like being a
wrestler, which also tends to be a crappy job except for a few superstars.
Even those superstars can't do the job for very long before physical or
emotional breakdown settles in.

Sex "work" is a "job" where the less experienced you are, the more "employers"
will want you. What other job prefers inexperienced people? Only exploitative
ones do.

------
Luc
Do all European bank cards have the associated bank account number printed on
them? Mine has, the full IBAN.

~~~
ollebro
Yep, I though all cards around the world had that. But it seems to me that
buying stuff with a debit card isn't that common in USA.

~~~
zacinbusiness
U.S. cards just have the card number, which of course is separate from the
account number, and then there's the "security code" on the back, which is
typically a 3 or 4 digit number. But there is no other account information
printed on the card.

Also, I found out when I began working for international clients, the U.S.
doesn't participate in the IBAN system. Instead we have something else which
necessitates international wire transfer payments be made via an account
number, a routing number, and a swift number. It's very annoying. (perhaps
business accounts work differently, I get paid directly into my personal
account which I'm sure is a bad idea, but it works for me).

------
adamfeldman
Amazing to see this feature roll out at Balanced and now Stripe. The main
reason many of my friends don't like using Venmo and related apps is the
burden of putting in your bank account and routing numbers (not even the
security worry, just the effort it takes!).

~~~
maccman
Afaik, Balanced don't have debit card payouts publicly available, they only
have a landing page which is 'accepting applications'.

~~~
steveklabnik
It actually works in our test API for anyone. Check it:

Make a card:

    
    
        $curl https://api.balancedpayments.com/cards \
          -u ak-test-2qEM0Znvd8LIVbZ01LbFHvHgab4fkNr3c: \
          -d name="Johannes Bach" \
          -d number=4342561111111118 \
          -d expiration_month=05 \
          -d expiration_year=2017
    

The 'credit' link in the response is that comes back is
'/cards/CC2mEWYlYvod2E1w3TJHOiGh/credits'. So we push:

    
    
        $ curl https://api.balancedpayments.com/cards/CC2mEWYlYvod2E1w3TJHOiGh/credits \
          -u ak-test-2qEM0Znvd8LIVbZ01LbFHvHgab4fkNr3c: \
          -d amount=10000
    

We will turn it on _in production_ for people in the beta period. Some
customers have already integrated it in test!

------
loceng
Is this using the same method that Dwolla uses for their 25 cent transactions?

~~~
boling11
Dwolla accounts are still funded over the ACH network (requires
account/routing number). The exciting thing here is you only need a debit card
number to send money.

~~~
loceng
Interesting. Thanks.

------
mangeletti
Take that, Dwolla :)

------
dcc1
"Just like sending funds to bank accounts, a transfer to a debit card costs
25¢ and will arrive in the card’s bank account in 1-2 business days. As
always, you’ll need to verify your recipient’s identity.

While we can only support U.S. Visa and MasterCard debit cards at the moment,
we’re actively working to bring our transfers API to our users in other
countries."

.... uhm or just use bitcoin ...

~~~
pc
Right now, most of our marketplaces' sellers seem to prefer using their
regular bank accounts rather than Bitcoin. But if/when the Bitcoin revolution
happens, we'll enthusiastically support that too. (We're running a Bitcoin
acceptance beta right now:
[https://stripe.com/bitcoin](https://stripe.com/bitcoin))

~~~
applecore
_> Right now, most of our marketplaces' sellers seem to prefer using their
regular bank accounts rather than Bitcoin._

Understatement of the year.

~~~
cperciva
On the other hand, the people who do want to use Bitcoin tend to care very
strongly about it.

