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Re:Brex wants to replace startup bank accounts with Brex Cash by pedrofranceschi on Wednesday October 02, 2019 @06:25PM (#21141438)
[Brex co-founder]

We’re incredibly excited to announce Brex Cash!

Since we started Brex, my co-founder Henrique and I had much bigger plans than only corporate credit cards. Business bank accounts are a pain for virtually every company for a long time, and for the last 18 months we embarked on a journey to build a banking experience that, coupled with the Brex credit card, is 10x better than anything out there.

Alan Kay used to say that if you’re serious about software, you should make your own hardware. In fintech, I believe the equivalent analogy is: if you’re serious about financial services, you should build your own infrastructure. At Brex, we have a strong belief that great financial products innovate at the core, and not only at the UI layer. So instead of relying on existing banking systems to build Brex Cash, we took the approach of building our core systems from scratch, building directly on top of the payment rails (NACHA and FedWire). This level of autonomy with the technology stack enables us to do amazing things like instant onboarding, making funds available instantly, charging no fees on wires/ACH (given our more efficient cost structure), and deeply integrating with the Brex card. And at the UI layer, we packed all of this into a user experience that is minimal, polished and designed to save companies time and get them back to running their business.

We also wanted to make business banking better in all aspects - not only on software. We noticed our customers raised millions of dollars and kept the money parked in their checking accounts, earning no interest. A 10x better experience meant offering the highest yield on their money and, to achieve that, Brex Cash became not only a complex technical challenge, but also a financial/regulatory one. The way most fintechs offer banking services without having to be regulated as banks is by “reselling” another bank’s products and bolting a UI on top of the bank’s checking/savings account. But because traditional banks separate checking and savings accounts, customers earn a lower yield on their money as a whole. Instead, we chose a different structure: customers put their cash into Brex Treasury LLC, a registered broker-dealer affiliate of Brex Inc., that invests the cash in low-risk securities, such as U.S. Treasuries.

The reactions of our early Brex Cash customers have been overwhelmingly positive, and we believe we’re on the path to build the best bank account replacement, not only for startups but for any business in America. Personally, I’ve been dreaming about this product since I was 16 years old building my first company in Brazil, and I’m incredibly proud of the Brex team for their hard work to make this dream a reality :)

We’d love to hear your feedback!

Re:Brex wants to replace startup bank accounts with Brex Cash by gnicholas on Wednesday October 02, 2019 @10:56PM (#21143121)
I’m pleased to hear about the 1.6% return. I posted a while back asking HNers what they do with their business cash, and no one had a good recommendation. It kills me to have cash sitting in a bank account earning zilch (unlike my personal cash, which earns 2%).

I’ll take a look at this new offering and likely move a bunch of cash over if everything checks out.

Re:Brex wants to replace startup bank accounts with Brex Cash by ritikm on Thursday October 03, 2019 @12:45AM (#21143800)
[PM on Brex Cash]

Thanks for the feedback! Let us know if you have any questions by emailing [email protected] or visiting https://brex.com/cash

Re:Brex wants to replace startup bank accounts with Brex Cash by ratsimihah on Thursday October 03, 2019 @05:09AM (#21145026)
Got cash? Brex it!
Re:Brex wants to replace startup bank accounts with Brex Cash by fillskills on Wednesday October 02, 2019 @10:21PM (#21142964)
Can we use Brex bank as a bank for Stripe?
Re:Brex wants to replace startup bank accounts with Brex Cash by ritikm on Thursday October 03, 2019 @12:46AM (#21143812)
[PM on Brex Cash]

Yes, you get an account and routing number with your Brex Cash account, which you can enter into on Stripe (like you would your bank account's account/routing number) to receive your Stripe payouts.

Re:Brex wants to replace startup bank accounts with Brex Cash by fillskills on Thursday October 10, 2019 @11:48PM (#21221400)
Just signed up. Can I request to get bumped up in the chain?
Re:Brex wants to replace startup bank accounts with Brex Cash by fillskills on Thursday October 03, 2019 @07:19AM (#21145725)
Good. Time to get rid of the rude expensive bank i got by default
Re:Brex wants to replace startup bank accounts with Brex Cash by toomuchtodo on Thursday October 03, 2019 @11:40AM (#21148257)
Maybe Stripe will start their own Cash account product?
Re:Brex wants to replace startup bank accounts with Brex Cash by all_blue_chucks on Wednesday October 02, 2019 @10:55PM (#21143113)
Other than using Money Market accounts instead of FDIC-insured accounts, what specifically is better about banking with Brex? And for those factors that are quantitative, how MUCH better are they?
Re:Brex wants to replace startup bank accounts with Brex Cash by ritikm on Thursday October 03, 2019 @01:07AM (#21143904)
[PM on Brex Cash]

Top five things:

1) 1.6% or more yield on your cash balance. (Savings accounts in the US offer 0.06-0.16% interest on average.)

2) Zero fees on ACH and wire transfers. (Average wire fee is $23.)

3) Get Brex reward points every time you do a transaction. (Haven't seen an account give reward points for each transaction but I could be wrong.)

4) One account for all your deposits. (Typically have two accounts -- checking and savings -- with checking typically earning less yield and savings accounts having a transfer limit of 6 transactions/month).

5) Easy-to-use online interface designed to give you back time to run your business. (Of course, very easy for me to say this so I'll let the customer feedback do the talking as we roll Brex Cash out).

You can visit https://brex.com/cash for more information.

Re:Brex wants to replace startup bank accounts with Brex Cash by tyfon on Thursday October 03, 2019 @04:30AM (#21144839)
Living in Europe, if this is really true then the US banking system sucks even more than I thought.

What you describe is basically a normal (northern) European bank from the sound of it.

The only difference is the interest rate, in my own bank I get lower rate until I hit a certain threshold, but it's the same account and there are no limitations on withdrawals etc. If you offer 1.6% from the first dollar than that is slightly better.

Re:Brex wants to replace startup bank accounts with Brex Cash by pjc50 on Thursday October 03, 2019 @05:54AM (#21145246)
Normal for consumer banks, yes. Business banking is rougher. The RBS treatment of small businesses was notorious: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/feb/12/confidentia...
Re:Brex wants to replace startup bank accounts with Brex Cash by NeedMoreTea on Thursday October 03, 2019 @06:42AM (#21145502)
Predatory lending and fraud isn't really a feature of business banking. Predatory and fraudulent lending isn't restricted to business - though perhaps may be more lucrative. Banks do rather have the deserved reputation of lending an umbrella to ask for it back should it rain.

The bullets the GP lists were standard features of the high street business accounts I've had. Didn't care about reward points, but I don't seek those on personal accounts either. :)