Why Did Stripe Need Dozens of People for Bank Returns?

Darragh Buckley says Stripe ended up with dozens of people reconciling ACH returns because a trace ID in the file did not traverse correctly. Wells Fargo was altering the data element. The change was not unreasonable, and the engineers had not built it badly. It was not built in anticipation that a company would compose the trace inside its own product.

While building Stripe, he wanted banking technology that exposed all of the data and all of the capabilities by API. Originating an ACH, handling the return, hold harmless requests, and the dispute process at the end should all be available by API. He gets emails from his bank after someone has already pulled an ACH, asking whether he approves a pull that has already happened. The train has left the station, and he wants it to come back. The alternative is growing large manual operations teams or not building the product.

A product that almost fits, with so much built on top of it, is a reason to redo the foundations. The gap prompted Increase.