The unnamed payment processor in this article is Dwolla, which is itself an unlicensed money transmitter in California and most other states. Their connection to a credit union subsidiary does not render them exempt from the law. (Of course, there are thousands of other unlicensed money transmission companies as well, from lawyers to universities to escrow services to payroll processors to real estate agents to construction companies.)
The most expedient way to solve this problem is to contact your state legislators whether you live in California or any other state.
New Hampshire yesterday held a hearing on HB 1700 (http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/committees/housebillsi...), which will repeal New Hampshire's money transmission laws. We should be holding such hearings in every state where money transmission laws exist. They typically cost more to have on the books than they generate in revenue, and they absolutely destroy payments innovation.
Call and e-mail your state legislators! (And if you don't mind, BCC help@facecash.com if and when you do!) The people to e-mail in Silicon Valley are:
Jeremy Dennis - jeremy.dennis@asm.ca.gov (Assemblyman Richard Gordon, Palo Alto)
Brock Winstead - brock.winstead@sen.ca.gov (Senator Joe Simitian, Palo Alto)
Gibran Maciel - gibran.maciel@asm.ca.gov (Assemblyman Jerry Hill, San Mateo)
Eric Dang - eric.dang@asm.ca.gov (Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, San Francisco)
Other people to CC:
Nick Hardeman - nick.hardeman@asm.ca.gov (Principal Assistant, Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, San Francisco)
Bob Twomey - bob.twomey@asm.ca.gov (District Director, Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, San Francisco)
Eileen Newhall - eileen.newhall@sen.ca.gov (Staff Director, California Senate Banking, Finance & Insurance Committee; where the MTA originated)
Mark Farouk - mark.farouk@asm.ca.gov (Legislative Consultant, California General Assembly; had input on the MTA)
This is a story about money changing hands, and so, like clockwork, here's Aaron Greenspan to use it as a coatrack for a discussion of his own company.
The kernel of Greenspan's problem: to operate a business that allows random people in California to transfer funds using you as a middleman, you need to (in effect) post a bond, so that when you do something dumb and put yourself out of business, you don't lose millions of dollars of consumer money.
Greenspan would like the amount of these bonds to be more transparent and, by repeated implication, much lower than they are; their current amounts can best be described today as "if you have to ask, you can't afford them".
That wasn't very nice, and you didn't add anything particularly helpful to the conversation. Regular HN readers will be familiar with thinkcomp's problems with this legislation and don't need you volunteering to police him; irregular or newer readers might find one of his comments informative, or might not, and either way, still don't need your help in pointing out his "coatrack".
We're mostly all adults here. It would be nice if HN police limited themselves to matters of civility and trusted everyone else to figure out the rest on their own.
His comments are always quite informative wrt this particular topic. Everyone has a coat rack. If I recall you're always close at hand at any discussion of cryptography. Why is that? I certainly don't have a problem with that, especially since your comments are always informative on that topic.
Give the guy a break. This particular topic is important to the success of his business.
I am not suing the state of California because their failure to use bcrypt is costing me money. In fact, I make more money when people don't do what I say on HN. My attachment to crypto discussions is not comparable to what Greenspan is doing with HN.
You can follow the progress of the lawsuit against the Money Transmission Act at http://www.plainsite.org/flashlight/case.html?id=716056.
You can learn more about the companies behind the Money Transmission Act here at http://www.plainsite.org/issues/index.html?id=1.
The unnamed payment processor in this article is Dwolla, which is itself an unlicensed money transmitter in California and most other states. Their connection to a credit union subsidiary does not render them exempt from the law. (Of course, there are thousands of other unlicensed money transmission companies as well, from lawyers to universities to escrow services to payroll processors to real estate agents to construction companies.)
The most expedient way to solve this problem is to contact your state legislators whether you live in California or any other state.
New Hampshire yesterday held a hearing on HB 1700 (http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/house/committees/housebillsi...), which will repeal New Hampshire's money transmission laws. We should be holding such hearings in every state where money transmission laws exist. They typically cost more to have on the books than they generate in revenue, and they absolutely destroy payments innovation.
Call and e-mail your state legislators! (And if you don't mind, BCC help@facecash.com if and when you do!) The people to e-mail in Silicon Valley are:
Jeremy Dennis - jeremy.dennis@asm.ca.gov (Assemblyman Richard Gordon, Palo Alto)
Brock Winstead - brock.winstead@sen.ca.gov (Senator Joe Simitian, Palo Alto)
Gibran Maciel - gibran.maciel@asm.ca.gov (Assemblyman Jerry Hill, San Mateo)
Eric Dang - eric.dang@asm.ca.gov (Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, San Francisco)
Other people to CC:
Nick Hardeman - nick.hardeman@asm.ca.gov (Principal Assistant, Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, San Francisco)
Bob Twomey - bob.twomey@asm.ca.gov (District Director, Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, San Francisco)
Eileen Newhall - eileen.newhall@sen.ca.gov (Staff Director, California Senate Banking, Finance & Insurance Committee; where the MTA originated)
Mark Farouk - mark.farouk@asm.ca.gov (Legislative Consultant, California General Assembly; had input on the MTA)