-
The Waterloo, Iowa credit union is launching a funds transfer system that, for now, will pump money into the alternative payment company Dwolla's platform.
June 15
Dwolla has provided roughly a dozen financial institutions with keys to its low-cost, real-time payment transaction network FiSync since it opened its doors to the banking industry at the Finovate Spring conference this year in San Francisco.
Banks get access to FiSync through an open application programming interface that allows developers to move money over Dwolla's network.
The payment method is comparable in cost to an Automated Clearing House transaction, but it moves money as fast as a credit card transaction.
More than two dozen banks have signed up for the service.
"It's live and it's public," says Dwolla founder and chief executive Ben Milne. "If you are a financial institution you can go to FiSync.dwolla.com to get access to the keys …but we probably won't approve you" yet.
Milne says his company is taking its time taking when giving banks access to its recently released bank transfer system.
Last month, Dwolla announced that Veridian Credit Union of Waterloo, Iowa, began offering FiSync mobile and online payments to its customers through the bank transfer system. The credit union has roughly 160,000 members.
Milne spoke Monday on a panel sponsored by The Technology Council of Greater Kansas City, KCnext.
Alterra Bank, a $150 million asset bank in Overland Park, Kan. that is focused on commercial customers, recently contacted Dwolla in order to get access to FiSync.
Over the past year or so, Alterra spent $500,000 on technology and launched new mobile and banking applications, including mobile remote deposit capture, this spring.
"We are probably still a long ways off," says Alterra's chief strategy officer Jeff Chambers. "But the ability to transmit payments like that would benefit our customers."
