Most of the comments on the first page here are about how Dwolla can't possibly succeed because either the banks won't let them, they don't understand what they are trying to do, or there will be some sort of financial event which will ruin everyone's day and destroy the company.
I don't know if that is true or not, but I do know that these are their problems to attack and I'm glad they are attacking them. Having known people who were victims of ACH Fraud it makes you wonder where all those billions of fraud dollars/euros/etc go.
So unlike PayPal, these guys have investors/partners that are in fact financial institutions. Further, those institutions can no doubt provide things such as an account that is 'plugged in' to the financial infrastructure that is the world.
I can see no barrier at all to someone opening up an account with Viridian, depositing some money in it. And then using the Dwolla payments system to make payments too it and get money from it. That is all you need for one seller on Ebay, or Etsy, or whatever to set up their store.
Now if that person has any success at all, and I see no reason that the payment system would be any more of a barrier than the original use of PayPal with Ebay before Ebay sanctioned them was, then the payment stream will grow.
If Viridian goes from having 1.4B$ in assets to have 10 - 20 - 30B$ in assets because folks are creating accounts there to hold money for their endeavors, the other banks will notice, and the world will respond. I could be a negative response like they did against Discover Card but again that is a challenge that Dwolla apparently has signed up for.
So I'm interested in the ways instant payments can be used usefully. In game purchases? Kickstarter like funding? Etc.
I agree with your general thrust. I believe their founder, when asked why he wasn't moving the company to SV, replied "We could never have launched Dwolla in the Valley"
Dwolla is "old school" start up. Taking on big, entrenched, B2B problems. That just doesn't happen in the Valley anymore like it used to. Look at all the comments here "It's too hard, it'll never work, we're doomed" Not surprising but still sad nonetheless. Back to developing mobile apps.
Isn't it both? An asset (the cash) and a liability (the responsibility to give you cash when you want to withdraw)? The cash is often turned into other kinds of assets (loans, say), but it still starts out as an asset.
No, cash deposits are the basis for a banks liquidity, they need a certain percentage of deposits (set by the Fed in the US) to cover the risk associated with their liabilities (loans).
I don't know if that is true or not, but I do know that these are their problems to attack and I'm glad they are attacking them. Having known people who were victims of ACH Fraud it makes you wonder where all those billions of fraud dollars/euros/etc go.
So unlike PayPal, these guys have investors/partners that are in fact financial institutions. Further, those institutions can no doubt provide things such as an account that is 'plugged in' to the financial infrastructure that is the world.
I can see no barrier at all to someone opening up an account with Viridian, depositing some money in it. And then using the Dwolla payments system to make payments too it and get money from it. That is all you need for one seller on Ebay, or Etsy, or whatever to set up their store.
Now if that person has any success at all, and I see no reason that the payment system would be any more of a barrier than the original use of PayPal with Ebay before Ebay sanctioned them was, then the payment stream will grow.
If Viridian goes from having 1.4B$ in assets to have 10 - 20 - 30B$ in assets because folks are creating accounts there to hold money for their endeavors, the other banks will notice, and the world will respond. I could be a negative response like they did against Discover Card but again that is a challenge that Dwolla apparently has signed up for.
So I'm interested in the ways instant payments can be used usefully. In game purchases? Kickstarter like funding? Etc.