<story><title>Dwolla is going to eliminate ACH</title><url>http://blog.dwolla.com/ach-goes-real-time-with-fisync-free-for-banks-and-credit-unions/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jellicle</author><text>Who owns ACH?  The banks do.&lt;p&gt;Who owns Dwolla&apos;s replacement?  Dwolla.&lt;p&gt;Banks are smarter than that.  Adoption of this will be zero.&lt;p&gt;Instant transfers mean that someone can bankrupt an entire bank - instantly.  If someone hacks this brand-new untested system and issues 100% withdrawal orders for every customer account, B of A and Citibank and Wells Fargo and HSBC can all be bankrupted between 10:32:24 and 10:32:25.  Ooops!&lt;p&gt;ACH is slow and revocable &lt;i&gt;on purpose&lt;/i&gt;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>InclinedPlane</author><text>Indeed. I wish Dwolla the best of luck, but realistically it&apos;s going to take a lot more barbarians at the gate to bring down the existing system and replace it with something better.&lt;p&gt;Most importantly, anyone who talks about financial transactions at the level of shuffling bits around and doesn&apos;t address the issues of fraud, money laundering, regulations, and legal compliance is just not serious about it. If you want to invent a new currency or a new banking infrastructure, go right ahead. But unless you are prepared to get into bed with the existing processors as well as world governments and law enforcement agencies then you are probably relegating your system to obscurity or worse.</text></comment>
<story><title>Dwolla is going to eliminate ACH</title><url>http://blog.dwolla.com/ach-goes-real-time-with-fisync-free-for-banks-and-credit-unions/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jellicle</author><text>Who owns ACH?  The banks do.&lt;p&gt;Who owns Dwolla&apos;s replacement?  Dwolla.&lt;p&gt;Banks are smarter than that.  Adoption of this will be zero.&lt;p&gt;Instant transfers mean that someone can bankrupt an entire bank - instantly.  If someone hacks this brand-new untested system and issues 100% withdrawal orders for every customer account, B of A and Citibank and Wells Fargo and HSBC can all be bankrupted between 10:32:24 and 10:32:25.  Ooops!&lt;p&gt;ACH is slow and revocable &lt;i&gt;on purpose&lt;/i&gt;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>joezydeco</author><text>Dwolla has funding from a large credit union (Viridian, previously known as John Deere CU).  So maybe they&apos;re looking for a way to give CUs an edge over the mainstream banks?</text></comment>