[p2p-research] Fwd: agile-banking list posts - "open wallet"

Wed Jan 6 09:51:03 CET 2010

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Jan 6, 2010 at 2:22 PM
Subject: agile-banking list posts - "open wallet"
To: opencc at googlegroups.com
Cc: Bernard Lietaer <blietaer at earthlink.net>

again, interesting post on agile banking list,

related to "InterWallet" ( part of personal project history ),

tool enabling " anti-fraud measures "

and now "open wallet"

http://www.openwallet.org/

" OpenWallet.org is an Open Source Wallet Project with the aim to support
Open Standards (such as, for now, OpenTransact, OSCurrency and OAuth). An
initial implementation was developed using PHP, the Zend Framework, and
PostgreSQL.

An additional Open Standard I am working on, is the ability for the system
to automatically detect financial details using private/public key
encryption published via DNS TXT records, which also contain URL’s for
automatic financial services discovery. "

----

http://groups.google.com/group/agile-banking?hl=en&pli=1

http://groups.google.com/group/agile-banking/browse_thread/thread/55a1c2c366be405e/5af6ff6b36fbf75a?hl=en#5af6ff6b36fbf75a

also see founder of group :

http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?hl=en&enc_user=p-9jmBAAAACFkDFanCw2ZBOWOUtJ43tb

and other members ( if you have access ? after applying as member ? )

http://groups.google.com/group/agile-banking/members?hl=en

// note : may also be complementary with current discussions on ripple list
:

http://groups.google.com/group/rippleusers

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Count Zero <countz at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jan 3, 2010 at 12:16 PM
Subject: Re: New member introductions
To: agile-banking at googlegroups.com

Well, InterWallet was started with very little money. We were very sick of
the whole VC world, and we thought we could do it with tiny amounts of
money, and make our own decisions quickly, agile style, without much
management overhead (At the time, VC did not really understand Agile - they
are like sheep, going after the herd. If another VC is doing something, and
it worked out well, only then they will copy that VC). This worked well, and
we had a working product in around 9 month, without boring board meetings
and without having to prepare financial projections and sales/marketing
plans.

The UI was very friendly, and used Ajax all over. At the time, it was quite
revolutionary, and you could say it was much friendlier and easier to use
than PayPal even with their current interface, and I take a lot of pride in
that. It also had an amazing Ajax based Address Book where you could manage
your relationship with merchants and friends/family/colleagues, and you
could send them money directly from within the address book, very easily.

InterWallet had two merchant accounts for credit card billing, one in the
middle east and one in the USA. It also had a connection to Israeli banks
for wire transfers to merchants during the pilot (Only Israeli merchants
were accepted for the pilot). And it even had a connection to the credit
card companies via something called "The Ring", which was basically a data
collection and synchronization service non-profit organization setup by all
Credit Card Companies & Banks in Israel, in association with the largest ISP
(Bezeq). What they provided us, was the exact data from the credit card
companies, and our company's bank account, after they were finished with
their processing, so we could actually know when a credit card transaction
was really REALLY complete ;-) (full cycle). We also had real-time
chargeback/representation request notification thanks to that service, so
everything was 100% automated.

Money was held until the full cycle was complete (we did not want to take
any risks because we didn't have huge money backing us up), so until the
money for a transaction was actually received to our own bank account, the
receiver of the funds could not use the money. However as soon as money
arrived, we released the funds. The minimum wait time was a few days, and
the maximum wait time was almost 1 month, because of the way credit card
companies credit merchants in Israel (twice per month, on the 2nd and on the
8th of the month).

The system supported credit card transactions, wire transfers, transfer to
and from debit cards, scratch cards (prepaid), issuance of scratch cards for
merchants, with specific amounts, flexible scratch cards (with a variable
amount, like cheques), internal transfers (like paypal), and even Western
Union style transfers (with a code similar to MTCN, etc). The system even
had some unique features to combat fishing, which I am only now starting to
see happening elsewhere. It was also multilingual and even had "in-place"
Ajax translation facility, so you could translate the system to your
language while working on it ;-)

Transactions were like small "programs", with rollback functionality. The
rollback did not have to be 100% symmetrical (some money you can give back,
some of it was hard expenses, so you can't give back, etc). There were money
buffers (Money in "Limbo"), and if you want I can elaborate more on this.

At our peak we were 4 developers, it was a lot of fun, and many interesting
investors came and wanted to either buy us completely or invest in us, but
the condition with my partner did not allow any of that to happen, and the
rest is history ;-)

And now I am back at it again with OpenWallet.org and I am really excited to
be touching this scene again. We have a very interesting partner in Jordan,
and I believe it's a pretty good place to start the business again because
regulation is flexible and relaxed, and the local partner over there already
has all the authorities informed, and the license to engage in the planned
activity.

On Jan 3, 2010, at 2:47 AM, Pelle Braendgaard wrote:

> Thanks. I've got an interest myself in third world countries. Can you
> talk about how InterWallet worked?
>
> P
>
> On Sat, Jan 2, 2010 at 6:59 AM, Count Zero <countz at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Will introduce myself briefly, then. I began my "finance" related
ventures with a very cool anti-fraud system I developed in 1999~2000
together with a team of very talented developers. That company still
operates to this day, a very large billing operation with highly successful
anti-fraud measures for all its merchants.
>>
>> I then created an online "Wallet" called InterWallet.com, between 2003 ~
2005, which was intended for third world countries (where regulation is
relatively scarce or relaxed). The system had a successful pilot for a bit
over a year (served around 50 select merchants, and around 15,000 customers
were billed), at which point we stopped the pilot, and began pursuing
regulatory procedures to get a real live system up in several countries.
However I originally partnered with a very eccentric individual, and our
partnership went sour two years into the venture, so I gave up the IP and
sold him my part for 25 cents. He of course didn't know what to do with it,
and the company went bust 1 month later.
>>
>> And now, after a few more years of creating online trading systems, I
find myself attracted again to the world of online wallets, transactions,
virtual money, virtual currencies, and their potential to change the world
in very radical ways.
>>
>> I believe in Open Standards, Open Source, and that they are extremely
powerful forces that can really change the world, by achieving wide adoption
around the globe, thanks to being open to scrutiny and peer review.
>>
>>
>> --
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>>
>
>
>
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