As a part of our hiring series at Dwolla, which we kicked off last week with our new designer position, we’re announcing a new business developer position has opened up and this time it’s for our fintech product, FiSync.

FiSync was a hit, a big hit. We were honored with Best of Show (along with our friends MoneyDesktop, BillGuard, SoMoLend and a few others), got some great coverage and received a long queue of integration requests via our FiSync portal.  So we’ve decided to step up and meet demand by bringing on another business developer to facilitate and maintain integrations with our financial partners.

Ideally, we’re looking for someone with a background and unique take on financial services. You need to speak both tech and business fluently. We’re looking for someone who can help us grow, build, and maintain relationships in the financial industry. Are you the builder we’re looking for? Check out the following for a little more detail:

At Dwolla, we move fast, very fast. Considering the industry hasn’t changed in 50+ years, we are moving at lightning speed and we’ll need you to keep up. We like people with strong convictions about their work, who will take the bull by the horns. And we’re not talking the bulls on the streets of Seville, we’re talking Wall Street, major banks and financial institutions. You know that speed comes from proactively addressing the needs of your customers, not from cutting corners.

We build things.  You know it’s not an exact science, but building and maintaining relationships is a calculated art and, to prove it, you have a network that was built on handshakes and late night dinners, not just on LinkedIn. You’re about stoking and adding wood to the fire, not cold calling.  You are creative, innovative and responsive when it comes to working with the product as it is, but you’ll also be crucial in the long-term development of the product too. You will help serve as Dwolla’s liaison to our financial institution customers and be a keeper of the FiSync product.

We work together. We’re always working closely with others, internally and externally, to solve one of the nation’s biggest problems.  You need proven relationship management skills and a track record of collaboration, communication and problem-solving. You respond to the good and the bad positively, and you’re able to communicate the needs of your industry proactively to our team of engineers to make the product better.

We learn every day. At Dwolla, we wear many hats, even if they don’t fit at first.  Be prepared to push the boundaries of a traditional relationship management role from time to time. You will apply your experience in working in the financial industry, but you’ll also be charged with responsibilities that may require you to step outside your skill set to get the job done.

The bottom line: You understand the implications of FiSync and won’t rest until every financial institution offers real-time innovation to their customers. You will help build and maintain financial institution relationships that will provide the foundation for the nation’s 21st century payment network.

You’re going to work with the smartest people in the banking industry to implement something completely new, while changing the way more than 30 trillion dollars moves through the economy. Your work is going to become the underlying framework for changing the way the country moves money. If you’re not excited by that… This job is not for you.

Please get in touch; just send an email to jobs@dwolla.com with a resumé. We’d love to hear from you.

We operate in +$33.9 trillion dollar sandbox. Naturally, there are a lot of rules (about 99% of which are there to protect you, the account holder). Today we’re rolling out some changes to the Terms of Service that we believe better clarifies the network’s responsibilities, outlines its partnerships, and, most importantly, keeps the community safe, friendly and informed.

In the name of transparency, I’ve handpicked a few high-level points below. It’s not all encompassing, and we strongly encourage you to check out the TOS of Dwolla (as well as every service on the internet), but if you don’t have time, here’s a cheat sheet: .

• Our operational structure: Where your money goes matters to you so it matters to us. In the TOS, we’ve made it easier to understand the role of our partner, Veridian Credit Union. (Hint: This is where money is held and protected when you to connect to Dwolla).
• Bank level reversals: We’ve bolstered the existing verbiage to better clarify how and why a financial institutions would issue a reversal, as well as what happens when it does.
• User conduct: Just a few simple requests that we kindly ask that you refrain from doing (Hint: don’t sell crack cocaine, steal identities from people, or attempt to launder money).
• Account statuses: Dwolla is adamant about protecting our community from jerks. If you’re breaking the rules of the sandbox or hurting anyone in the community, we have no problem putting your account in time out. (Hint: see below)

Legalese is never fun but it’s an important part of growing up. We know that no one likes to see a TOS, especially us. We’ll keep innovating new solutions if you keep giving us feedback. Let us know your thoughts at Compliance@Dwolla.com.

“I’ll have a 12 oz. soy latte, and I’ll be paying with Dwolla.”

This is something that coffee shops in Central Iowa are becoming accustomed to hearing.

Coffee shops like Amici, Smokey Row, Mars Cafe, and Village Bean have become the old faithful of the caffeinated Dwolla’ers moving around the city, while new places keep popping up, like Ritual Café, Zanzibar’s, and Timbuktuu. In fact, we’ve seen quite the Dwolla adoption in coffee establishments not only here in Des Moines, but also in cities all across the nation. Elemental Coffee Roasters in Oklahoma City even hosted a Dwolla meetup for us earlier this year.

Maybe it’s the fact that coffee shops attract the technology-oriented that are more willing to pay with their phone, or maybe it’s that our customers are all caffeine addicts, but coffee shops tend to make up one of our larger merchant categories. But the thing is, you don’t have to be tech-savvy to get a business to sign up for Dwolla, or to pay them.

If you are a coffee shop wanting to accept payments, or if you are a loyal coffee drinker who wants your favorite coffee shop to start accepting Dwolla, here are some great things to keep in mind:

• Account setup is free, whether you’re a merchant, non-profit, or personal user. It takes about 5 minutes to set up an account, and there are no merchant contracts or hidden sign-up fees.
• There is no fee for transactions under $10 (perfect for that $3.75 latte, huh?) and transactions over $10 is only  $0.25 on transactions. Check out our gateway fee calculator to see how we match up against the competition.
• All you need to monitor incoming payments is a device that connects to the internet (phone, iPod touch, iPad, computer, etc). Use the Dwolla kiosk for an easy and safe way to view incoming transactions in real-time.
• No mandatory account balance(s).
• Printable and exportable statements are available from within every Dwolla account.
• New merchants automatically receive a Dwolla Spot, a stationary pin for patrons to pay via our mobile apps.
• Mobile? Maybe they have a coffee cart or are a vendor at the local farmer’s market. Activate Proxi! This is a beacon-like feature available on our smartphone apps that lets other Dwolla users pay based solely on how close they are to the merchant!
• Have an existing POS? We integrate with them. Just have them add a new tender in the checkout, give it the same characteristics as “cash” or “check,” and name it “Dwolla!”

From my personal experience, a lot of people feel a sense of loyalty towards the local businesses that they frequent. I’ve talked to people that will use only Dwolla or cash when paying these businesses because they hate using their credit card there, knowing that the merchant only gets a small percentage of their transaction. I also know people that will go out of their way to find a merchant that accepts Dwolla, just because they feel like it using it.

Coffee drinkers, go forth and Dwolla for your latte, and save your favorite coffee makers a truck load in interchange fees.

Good news! We will be announcing a series of new positions that we are looking to fill in the near future, so look for our announcements on available positions in the coming weeks! This week, we’d like to announce that we are looking to hire a designer to join our awesome design team.

We are looking for someone to help us design a better payment experience and disrupt an industry that hasn’t changed much in 50+ years. Sound good? We’d love to have you. The following is what we’re looking for in a lil’ more detail.

We want only kickass human beings to join our team. If you think of yourself as a unicorn, ninja, rock star, gummy bear, or even Batman-like, we don’t mind. Please just leave the ego at the door! Having a passion for great design and an eye for detail is paramount. We need to feel that you care deeply about your craft.

We move fast. Very fast. We like people with strong convictions about their work, who will take the bull by the horns. And because we have such a quick production cycle, we need good listeners who respond positively and quickly to feedback.

We work together. We’re constantly working closely with others to iterate on ideas and solutions to some of the nation’s biggest problems. We’ll expect you to easily communicate with people on different teams, with different personalities. We’re a big (small) family, so it’s important to us that everyone plays nicely together.

We build things. We’re looking for people who want to come to work every day and invent something new. We’re looking for people who desire to create new experiences and are not afraid to make a few mistakes along the way. Design is an evolution, not an exact science. The less of a cookie cutter you are, the more you’ll fit in. Experience working in both the digital and print space is fantastic, but if we had to choose, we’d pick digital any day. Bonus points for knowledge of HTML9 and CSS7.

We learn every day. At Dwolla, we wear many hats, even if they don’t fit at first. For example, people access our apps from the web and from their mobile devices, so there’s a good chance you’ll also be designing for the iOS and Android platforms. Of course, we’d really like to talk about what you specialize in and what you’re passionate about, but be prepared to push the boundaries of your creativity and skill set from time to time.

The bottom line: We want you to help us design and build how people experience our brand. Something you can be proud to tell mom and dad about. We talk to ours daily, and trust us, they’re very proud of what we do.

Please get in touch; just send an email to jobs@dwolla.com with a resumé and link to your work. We’d love to hear from you.

Dwolla is a payment network, but it doesn’t operate in the same way a lot of other systems do. We’ve been building a series of images to demonstrate how Dwolla works in general and how Dwolla compares to other systems.

So episode 1 of the graphic series is this: How Dwolla works in relation to traditional payment networks.

There are obviously a lot more moving pieces to this inside that we’ll be diving into with additional graphics but on a very core level, this is really what makes Dwolla wonderful.

It makes a very complex thing, more simple than it is right now. That’s the idea… And in the process make the cost structure easier to understand.

Dwolla’s FiSync service is something that we’ve been working on for years in some form or another. We released the standard functionality in various forms last year to financial institutions across the country, but none of the iterations offered the most disruptive component: an engine to power real-time transaction of real funds.

As of today, we’re excited to announce that we’ve designed a real-time system that solves this problem. Not only does it solve the problem, but we’ve decided to give the answer to your banks and credit unions for free.

Why is this important?

I give you a dollar bill, and you know that dollar is worth 4 quarters, 10 dimes, 20 nickels or 100 pennies, but as Dwolla users, you know that when it comes to electronic transactions that is no longer the case. Since the 60s and 70s, new fees, costs, partnerships and structures have been built on top of what used to be a pretty simple idea, turning it into a confusing system that’s no longer recognizable. I swipe, you get paid 2-7 days later, the value of a dollar drops by ~2.75%, and $48 billion is lost.

At its core, the thing feeding this beast and moving your money from Bank A to Bank B is a 40-year-old system, facilitating a $33.9 trillion dollar exchange, called the Automated Clearing House (ACH).  Unfortunately, the way that it works, the processes that it requires, and the parties needed to be involved, take transactions two to five days to clear. Compounded by 80+ reject codes (which have a full 90 days for everyone to wrestle with), rampant fraud and unrealistic hours of operation, ACH isn’t the engine for real-time payments. It’s old reliable but it needs a helping hand to go real-time and not take a holiday break.

What worked well back when Disco and rotary phones were a good idea doesn’t work well now, and instead of innovating a new solution, we handed off the reins to Visa and Mastercard.

FiSync: A real-time API for financial institutions and service providers

The core component of FiSync is a real-time transfer system that allows money to move from one bank account to another, in real-time, and without using any of the existing systems, networks or resellers. That simple.

Giving it away for free

It’s not an API to solve a development issue, but an API to speed up a $33.9 trillion landscape and make it safer. We think that’s worthy of a $0 price tag, so we’re giving it away to your banks and credit unions for free.

No long drawn out contract, special treatment for different sized banks, or any precedence once a bank is signed up.  No sales cycles, no licensing agreements, no fancy dinners where I stroke your bank’s ego, just a pretty nifty SDK, with some endpoints and API keys.

For banks, credit unions and service providers, it allows you to:

• Integrate with Dwolla’s cloud service to facilitate real-time payments, which is up and running 24/7 (so it won’t be closed on the weekends or federal holidays)
• Gives you the ability to hold on to deposits
• Protect your clients by requiring other financial institutions to verify account information prior to engaging in transactions
• Bypass big scary ACH batch file

How does this benefit existing Dwolla users?

• Transactions will start to shift from a wait time of 3-5 days to real-time availability and you won’t have to do anything. We’ll make the changes for you as your bank or credit union comes on board.
• There is a verification layer which makes it more secure than traditional processes.
• IT’S FREAKING REAL-TIME!!!

How does this benefit merchants / businesses / software providers?

Simply put, it makes Dwolla even more attractive. Developers are already harnessing Dwolla’s APIs to move millions a month, but the new development certainly bolsters the argument. Nothing changes, it’s just an added benefit.

• You can innovate products on top of it
• Money can hit your bank account or Dwolla in real-time
• If you’re a merchant this means downline, real-time payments, for anything. That includes T-shirts, stocks, bonds, energy, utilities, gas…

Also, there are some API changes in the works, which are going to make some developers extremely happy as well.

A few added bonus items

• Dwolla’s pricing and fees won’t change at all.
• Dwolla’s core system and value propositions won’t change at all.

Now what?

If you’re a bank, credit union, or service provider to financial institutions you can apply to get access to the API here.

If you’re a marketplace / software platform / other provider who wants to leverage real-time in your software platform, grab your API keys and get ready for the next round of API updates.

If you’re an ATM / switch / set of pipes that thinks that this is a good integration opportunity for you, we consider you a service provider and would love to work with you expanding both of our capabilities. Please check out access to the API here.

If you’re a consumer, Veridian Credit Union comes online June 4th for all Veridian members, so I suggest you get a Veridian Credit Union account if you’re in Iowa

American Airlines, Barnes & Noble Among Initial Partners

To tweet this news, copy and paste http://bit.ly/Kg5vCR to your Twitter handle with the hashtag #MasterCardCTIA and #PayPass

NEW ORLEANS, May 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — CTIA BOOTH # 6135 – MasterCard (NYSE:MA) today announced PayPass Wallet Services, a new global offering for banks, merchants and partners that will make it faster and easier for their customers to make purchases in stores or online by allowing them to securely pay with a simple click of the mouse, touch of the tablet screen or tap of the smartphone.

To …

Do you like Super Mario Brothers drink coasters? So does Brandon Weber, one of our refined Dwolla developers. In fact, he purchased these treasures just the other day from Goodsmiths, an online marketplace for craft-like merchandise.  Here, you can find one of a kind items such as these coasters, hand-crafted jewelry, artwork and much more.

Goodsmiths celebrated a soft launch this past April, with over 600 shops and $250,000 in inventory. While their marketplace is frequently compared to the mother of craft-based marketplaces, Etsy, Goodsmiths differs in their fee structures and community. There is no cost of setting up and maintaining a store, as well as no cost for listing your merchandise. The only fee associated with a Goodsmiths storefront is the 2% transaction fee, which was lowered from its regular 5% transaction fee through the rest of 2012 in celebration of its launch.

And if you’ve been wondering what a sleek Dwolla integration on an eCommerce website looks like,  simply choose a lovely item from one of the Goodsmiths vendors who accepts Dwolla and move through the flow. It’ll blow your mind. I did it myself just a few weeks ago, check out my screenshots.

The new marketplace also strives to make the whole experience as friendly and community-oriented as possible, offering to connect your social networks to incorporate your online friends and connections. It also has a crowdsourcing option that allows you to gauge interest and secure customers before you even release the product. If you happen to have an online storefront already set up on Etsy, Goodsmiths offers an easy and efficient way to import all of your merchandise into your Goodmsiths store.

Did I mention that they are also located in Des Moines? Goodsmiths is just another fine example of the innovative tech community that us Iowans are cultivating here in the flyover states, right alongside our kick ass sweetcorn.