@blogdiva @liaizon We do make deposits to banks. A majority of the transfers we make are with banks. We do prefer bank transfers over PayPal. I agreed with you.

@blogdiva @liaizon Individuals

@blogdiva @liaizon People have the option to receive payment through bank account or PayPal. You are 100% right, we prefer to pay people through their bank account because it makes user verification a non-issue. It's up to the user though and some prefer to stick with PayPal.

@wcbdata @liaizon @scan Thanks, we agree. We recognize that identity verification raises legitimate privacy concerns, especially in the open source ecosystem.

If you know of identity verification providers that operate outside the US, and align with strong privacy standards, we would love suggestions.

Handling funds responsibly while respecting the privacy of contributors and maintainers is a balance we take very seriously.

@seabass @liaizon Happy to discuss. I've tried to respond to questions directly in this thread, but I want to make sure any user/hosted collective's concerns are addressed. If it's easier, we'll be at FOSS Backstage next week, and we can always be reached directly at hello@oscollective.org

@liaizon and again, it's the user's choice, and they can always opt out.

@liaizon Not antithetical at all. If someone chooses to not do the KYC with Persona, we respect their privacy and will offer other solutions. And no, we are not passing any user data to Persona. The integration is only intended for us (fiscal host admins) to copy/paste the persona inquiry ID into a reference field in the OC platform to make it easier for us to link into Persona later to check on the verification status. That's it. The ID# and the status is all we bring from Persona to OC.

@liaizon Regarding edge cases, the most common are when we are unable to verify the payee's identity or when they are in a jurisdiction flagged by US sanctions. Roughly .005% of expenses each month are flagged. Additionally, for each flagged expense, we communicate what is blocking us from moving the payment forward and offer alternatives so we can resolve the issue in a way the payee also feels comfortable with.

@liaizon Yes, I have a draft response on how we intend to use the platform connection, but I'd like the engineers to review it for accuracy, as the feature is still in development.
I will say it was fundamental for us that any personal data entered in Persona remain in Persona and any user information on the platform remain on the platform. We are not passing any user data from the platform to Persona. And if a user elects not to do our KYC with Persona, then we do our best to find another way.

@liaizon @scan Hi, Lauren here. I'm the ED of OSC and happy to chat. In this expense, the payee was presented with options that would not require a KYC with Persona; they confirmed, so we will be able to pay them through this method. KYC's are a rare edge case for us and are not issued on all expenses.
I will publish a general statement on the OSC updates page - but yes. We started using Persona before the news broke. We are currently looking for non-US providers and are open to suggestions.