Braid is dead, long live Braid
&gt; Our product was not in any sort of legal gray area (e.g. crypto) and fit within the bounds of existing law. From the day we started until the day we shut down, we’d spend millions of dollars to build a best-in-class compliance program to sit alongside our offering.<p>I worked in AML for a short time, and this:<p>&gt; There were myriad buckets of n users who loved having a financial account designed just for them. A few examples from our own data: coparents, houses, art collectives, extended families who get along, teams, people who share livestock, churches, punk bands, weekend hustles, extended families who don’t get along, wiccans, and our team’s personal favorite, firehouses.<p>sounds like a compliance nightmare. Who is the beneficial owner of the wiccans collective bank account? What happens when one of the punk band member turns out to be an Iranian national? If three art collective members all deposit 5000 in one day, is that &quot;smurfing&quot; (splitting transactions so that they are under reportable thresholds)?<p>I think there is a good argument to be made that our current regulatory regime is bad, I&#x27;m not defending it. In this current regulatory environment though, &quot;business style accounts but for informal small groups of individuals&quot; cannot possibly make sense as a product. Their sponsor bank obviously didn&#x27;t care when they were pulling minuscule numbers (10mm in monthly volume on a business account is really not very much to most banks.) Once Compliance finally decides to look at that Braid account, I&#x27;m sure it makes perfect business sense to offboard it for risk reasons. I&#x27;m shocked they didn&#x27;t realize this.<p>ETA: If you are going to build a Fintech, please go listen to The Dark Money Files podcast first,<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thedarkmoneyfiles.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.thedarkmoneyfiles.com&#x2F;</a><p>Maybe hire them to tell you if your product makes sense. You can&#x27;t &quot;move fast, break things&quot; with FINRA, it&#x27;s NOT easier to ask for forgiveness from OFAC, etc.