Dwolla Exits Apps, Focus Is On APIs

Dwolla, the eCommerce company, said Friday (Nov. 11) that it is shifting its focus onto APIs and is exiting the apps business.

The firm said in a statement that it had initially shipped its own apps since being founded six years ago, with an emphasis on building relationships with consumers, but Dwolla did not, in fact, envision becoming “Xero or Apple Pay.”

“Today, Dwolla is a platform.”

And with the emphasis on the platform, the company said, APIs and business tools make bank transfers “easy to use, understand and integrate into software applications. Instead of using our mobile application or Dwolla.com, our partners are building their own.”

Against that backdrop, Dwolla said, beginning Dec. 7, some changes are coming to applications, such as Dwolla.com, Dwolla Forms and Hub pages. The iOS, Android and Windows mobile apps, according to the release, will no longer be available across app stores. In addition, the firm will no longer offer the ability to create or pay using Dwolla’s Forms, and Hub pages will no longer be supported.

The company said that the Dwolla API remains unaffected and that B2B transactions are unaffected as well. Personal accounts can still be used to fulfill payment requests and conduct transactions with entities ranging from businesses to government accounts.