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Comment by downandout | Hacker News Reader

I assume they are processing the transaction as a refund to the recipient's card? There isn't enough detail to understand what's going on there. This looks like one of those "The investors made us put something up to start building buzz even though it isn't nearly done..." type of things.

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You can send money to debit cards using the ATM rails a la Pulse, STAR, etc.

It's something we've explored at Balanced: https://github.com/balanced/balanced-api/issues/32

It sounds more like an ACH. I read that there's a new API that allows sending money to any Visa card (not as a refund) but I've never seen it used.

It says "send to any debit card". That's different than "send to any checking account". You can't ACH to a debit card.

Except for prepaid, every debit card has a bank account behind it that you could ACH to.

Yes, and it says "any debit card" which would include prepaid cards.

Are you sure about that? Check the TOS. From everything I've seen online, everyone hates processing prepaid cards.

Some prepaid cards support direct deposit these days, which means they'd have an ACH account number. For example:

http://usa.visa.com/personal/cards/prepaid/prepaid-card-expl...

you can only process a refund if you have the authorization code for an already existing txn on that card. you can't just issue one just by knowing the card details.

Actually you can process a "refund" (actually just a credit) without an existing authorization code. I've done it.

Refunds and credits are two different things entirely. They are considered two different things by the credit card companies. If you've done this, then you've done it with a system that hides the specifics of what you are actually doing.

I already got a payment from a friend there. It works.

Do they process it as a refund then?

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