5 ms·

I evaluated stripe for a French company here in Europe, having heard lots of good things about them, and I have to say that while the integration was top notch,

by nolok 10y ago

I evaluated stripe for a French company here in Europe, having heard lots of good things about them, and I have to say that while the integration was top notch, they were vastly inferior to local bank competitors in two areas : no support whatsoever for 3D secure (once you've started using it, you never want to go back), and way higher pricing. National banks (CIC, Caisse d'Epargne) both offered % way, way lower than stripe (under 0.5% per transaction, stripe being almost 3* that for European card and 6* that for non European card). Even including the small monthly fee and the harder / higher cost integration, it made no sense to go with them. Was a bit surprised, mostly by the good terms that could be obtained in locally national banks once you sit with someone. Company I was representing wasn't very large (12 employees). I wonder what others here have experienced? Is it a special scenario that never happens, is it usual?

vertex-four 10y ago
> no support whatsoever for 3D secure This has always confused me about Stripe. They have integrations with various market-specific systems for many markets, but they don't have something that both vendors and consumers expect in the EU.
- piquadrat 10y ago
  They apparently are working on it [1]. I asked to join the private beta a few months ago, but haven't been invited so far. [1]: https://support.stripe.com/questions/does-stripe-support-3d-secure-verified-by-visa-mastercard-securecode https://support.stripe.com/questions/does-stripe-support-3d-...
  - lachyg 10y ago
    (I work at Stripe.) My apologies, if you email me at lachy@stripe.com I can invite you.
- globile 10y ago
  3D secure is a funny beast. We've seen conversion rates with 3D secure for certain products drop up to 40%. You need to tradeoff fraud/dispute stuff vs usability/conversions.
  - charlesdm 10y ago
    We're talking physical goods, right? I don't see why you would ever use 3D secure for digital "stuff".
    - nolok 10y ago
      Because it moves the onus of dealing with the fraud on the bank, not the seller. Let's say you sell a premium account on SuperSite, giving for 10€ one month of free movie streaming. Now you get a good deal with Publisher, which gives you access to their movies catalog. Suddenly you get users registering, subscribing, watching the movie they want, then cancelling through their bank, by doing a chargeback, claiming fraud or that you didn't deliver the product. Sometimes, it was even a stolen card, and the user doing the chargeback is honest. Without 3D Secure, you're out of your money until the issue is resolved, which can take up to 60 days. With 3D Secure, you keep the money, only after 60 days, if you have been found to be the one in the wrong, do you give back the money. And if it's a stolen card, since it passed 3D Secure it still isn't your problem in a lot of case. That is the incentive they used to get merchants to deploy it quickly and in just a few years it moved from nowhere to everywhere in France and throughout the EU.
briandear 10y ago
Doing an IT integration with a French bank? No thanks. Aren't they still using SOAP? As far as 3D, that 'service' is a pain. A consumer has to call their bank to 'enable' the service and do silly things like wait for pin codes in the mail to activate their cell phones and just various "security" theater. France has the highest rate of credit card fraud rate in Europe so even with all of that bureaucracy, it still has a huge problem. In terms of in person credit payments, Sum Up (sumup.fr) is the very best. Low fees, no forced connection to a specific bank. I use them for a small hotel business we have in the Luberon. I think it's a big feature to not have to work with French banks on anything. Their processes are stuck in the early 1990s: almost everything security related is done by mail, enabling things like international bank transfers online takes an inordinate amount of paperwork. Then they charge you a fee to actually have a debit card. For our business card, we're paying something around €15 per month per card. Also Stripe supports Bitcoin and Apple Pay (both web and mobile.) I admit I have strong loyalty to Stripe, they make all-based options look like fax machines by comparison. I'd rather my dev team be spending time of features that increase sales rather than wasting time on rusty bank integrations. Other benefits of Stripe include the fact that PCI (or the French equivalent is covered -- my own systems don't have to worry much about it, so there is a lower cost of ownership in terms of infrastructure requirements.) Finally, if you're an enterprise at scale, Stripe offers volume discounts. Everyone obviously has variables in terms of business model so Stripe might not be the best option for some businesses, but in many cases, they are a huge win.
- nolok 10y ago
  Almost everything you just said regarding French banks procedures, 3d secure and fees is incorrect. Either your experience dates from a long, long, LONG time ago, or you're making things up. For reference, virtually 100% of card owner in France can pay using 3d secure and they don't need any mail for that. The most common form of verification is a sms on your registered cellphone number. I haven't had to deal with soap, nor send any postal mail, for any part of our dealings. Including for fraud resolutions. And possibly your biggest mistake, from the merchant point of view whether or not 3d secure reduce the amount of fraud or not is irrelevant. If the payment is made using it, then the fraud is purely the bank's problem, whereas without it's yours and you're out of your money until the fraud is resolved.
charlesdm 10y ago
If you do sufficient volume, I would assume you can negotiate the price per transaction way down.
Xixi 10y ago
Reduce the employee count from 12 to 1, who isn't even a real employee because the company has no revenue yet, and suddenly Stripe proposition is much more interesting: it allows you to focus on your product, and finding product-market fit, instead of sitting with someone in a bank. Even when that someone is kind, competent and helpful (as has been my experience with several French banks, special mention to the Banque Populaire de Lorraine), even with exactly zero revenues yet. At such an early stage the ease of integration is overall much more important than the smaller transaction fee.
- nolok 10y ago
  Oh I agree, but I think Stripe and Braintree have pretty much acquired the minds of people in that situation. Where they need to grow I believe is the next stage, the one I was in, "ok so we actually have an actual company that people want to pay for stuff, now we need to monetize on the internet", and in that area they're not that good.
joering2 10y ago
Its funny but I helped a company setup their MSP from tech point of view (integration) and being in high risk business, 3 years later they got dropped by 4 major MSPs in USA and only one that stays with them is.. Bank of America Merchants. Not only that, but with high risk their rates used to be 6-8% fee; with BOA its 1.7%. My take is that BOA is so huge that they don't pay as much attention to chargebacks as other players. Of course eventually you might get kicked out if you misbehave, but on the other hand with EMS they went through 3 months of application process (and over 30 changes to their website to satisfy compliance department), and then got dropped at the first chargeback after processing 500 transactions. EMS explanation - you can't have more than 0.00% chargebacks on your account, which, unless you don't sell online at all, is impossible. As of stripe, I never looked at them seriously enough, cause I was turned off by their false advertisement: happy woman that says "all my funds are at my bank account overnight, no questions ask". If you ever processed a dollar in USA, you know how far from truth that is -- in fact, process more than 5% of your monthly average with most MSPs and your funds will be on hold for few days for "manual review". That's a standard procedure and google's search for "stripe holds my funds" clearly shows this behavior. Stripe knows this but with their ads they target naive or non-experienced sellers.
Artemis2 10y ago
Stripe is a good option for developers, but they are very expensive. They lowered their prices two times this year in France (2.9%+30c -> 1.8%+25c -> 1.4%+25c), but that's not enough to compete with local alternatives for medium to large businesses. It's very common to get "Interchange+" pricing in France, where the actual costs of processing are passed onto the merchant, plus a more transparent gateway fee (like a few cents). The fact they lack some critical features for cheap and reliable card payments (3DS, Carte Bancaire network + transparent pricing) is a no-no for more traditional businesses.
- lachyg 10y ago
  Hi Artemis2, if you process more than €30,000 per month, we can offer volume discounting [0]. Separately, we have support for 3DS in private beta. [0] Including interchange plus!
Vertrauen 10y ago
> 3D secure As a customer, I hate 3D secure. When I get that shit thrown at me, I often just head over to Amazon and buy the same item there. Even if it is more expensive. Reasons: The 3D Secure form always looks so unprofessional it makes me shiver. It often is loaded in an iframe so it could come from god knows where. Often it plain out does not work. It aborts the transaction with "Transaction aborted" or something like that with no further info. So I sit there thinking "Uhm.. what now? Is my password wrong or what?". Why would I input even more of my data into your damn form? The more data I give you, the easier you can mess with me. Now my CC card number and verification number is not enough anymore. Now you want my 3D "secure" password. What do you want next?
- nolok 10y ago
  I can only talk from my experience, but with 3 different (french) banks it has been decent looking (paypal level), clear instructions and errors, let me retry 2 or 3 times if I type the wrong code. The only issue is that I agree it shouldn't be allowed in iframes. The vast majority of ecommerce here uses it nowaday, except for sum under 20€ usually.
- thesimon 10y ago
  Most banks in Germany seems to have switched to text messages or generator apps for the 3D Secure code. A lot better experience and protects against simple phishing.
- stephenr 10y ago
  I've used it via "verified by visa" with two banks in two countries. In both cases, there is a custom phrase that I provide the bank, which is then provided on the 3D-secure page where i enter the sms OTP. Honestly so long as they show me the phrase I gave them, I couldn't give two shits if it looks like it was designed in 2002, at least that keeps it consistent with the rest of their online banking page styles.
- Nullabillity 10y ago
  Here in Sweden, 3D secure is effectively synonymous with two-factor auth. It's insane that, at this point, the banks don't just outright block any payment recipient that doesn't use it.
dawhizkid 10y ago
Depends on your needs - Stripe is about convenience IMO and works best for small shops. I've heard from people in the payments industry that Stripe's actual payment tech is sub-par and dated - cannot compete with the Braintree/Adyens of the world. If you require complexity then choose a more established vendor.
lachyg 10y ago
(I work at Stripe.) We are supporting 3D-Secure in private beta—if you'd like access, please email me support@stripe.com (https://support.stripe.com/questions/does-stripe-support-3d-secure-verified-by-visa-mastercard-securecode https://support.stripe.com/questions/does-stripe-support-3d-...)
acdanger 10y ago
For those curious, a paper detailing some known issues with 3D Secure's security: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/fc10vbvsecurecode.pdf http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/fc10vbvsecurecode.pdf

by nolok 10y ago

vertex-four 10y ago

> no support whatsoever for 3D secure This has always confused me about Stripe. They have integrations with various market-specific systems for many markets, but they don't have something that both vendors and consumers expect in the EU.

piquadrat 10y ago
They apparently are working on it [1]. I asked to join the private beta a few months ago, but haven't been invited so far. [1]: https://support.stripe.com/questions/does-stripe-support-3d-secure-verified-by-visa-mastercard-securecode https://support.stripe.com/questions/does-stripe-support-3d-...
- lachyg 10y ago
  (I work at Stripe.) My apologies, if you email me at lachy@stripe.com I can invite you.
globile 10y ago
3D secure is a funny beast. We've seen conversion rates with 3D secure for certain products drop up to 40%. You need to tradeoff fraud/dispute stuff vs usability/conversions.
- charlesdm 10y ago
  We're talking physical goods, right? I don't see why you would ever use 3D secure for digital "stuff".
  - nolok 10y ago
    Because it moves the onus of dealing with the fraud on the bank, not the seller. Let's say you sell a premium account on SuperSite, giving for 10€ one month of free movie streaming. Now you get a good deal with Publisher, which gives you access to their movies catalog. Suddenly you get users registering, subscribing, watching the movie they want, then cancelling through their bank, by doing a chargeback, claiming fraud or that you didn't deliver the product. Sometimes, it was even a stolen card, and the user doing the chargeback is honest. Without 3D Secure, you're out of your money until the issue is resolved, which can take up to 60 days. With 3D Secure, you keep the money, only after 60 days, if you have been found to be the one in the wrong, do you give back the money. And if it's a stolen card, since it passed 3D Secure it still isn't your problem in a lot of case. That is the incentive they used to get merchants to deploy it quickly and in just a few years it moved from nowhere to everywhere in France and throughout the EU.

briandear 10y ago

Doing an IT integration with a French bank? No thanks. Aren't they still using SOAP? As far as 3D, that 'service' is a pain. A consumer has to call their bank to 'enable' the service and do silly things like wait for pin codes in the mail to activate their cell phones and just various "security" theater. France has the highest rate of credit card fraud rate in Europe so even with all of that bureaucracy, it still has a huge problem. In terms of in person credit payments, Sum Up (sumup.fr) is the very best. Low fees, no forced connection to a specific bank. I use them for a small hotel business we have in the Luberon. I think it's a big feature to not have to work with French banks on anything. Their processes are stuck in the early 1990s: almost everything security related is done by mail, enabling things like international bank transfers online takes an inordinate amount of paperwork. Then they charge you a fee to actually have a debit card. For our business card, we're paying something around €15 per month per card. Also Stripe supports Bitcoin and Apple Pay (both web and mobile.) I admit I have strong loyalty to Stripe, they make all-based options look like fax machines by comparison. I'd rather my dev team be spending time of features that increase sales rather than wasting time on rusty bank integrations. Other benefits of Stripe include the fact that PCI (or the French equivalent is covered -- my own systems don't have to worry much about it, so there is a lower cost of ownership in terms of infrastructure requirements.) Finally, if you're an enterprise at scale, Stripe offers volume discounts. Everyone obviously has variables in terms of business model so Stripe might not be the best option for some businesses, but in many cases, they are a huge win.

nolok 10y ago
Almost everything you just said regarding French banks procedures, 3d secure and fees is incorrect. Either your experience dates from a long, long, LONG time ago, or you're making things up. For reference, virtually 100% of card owner in France can pay using 3d secure and they don't need any mail for that. The most common form of verification is a sms on your registered cellphone number. I haven't had to deal with soap, nor send any postal mail, for any part of our dealings. Including for fraud resolutions. And possibly your biggest mistake, from the merchant point of view whether or not 3d secure reduce the amount of fraud or not is irrelevant. If the payment is made using it, then the fraud is purely the bank's problem, whereas without it's yours and you're out of your money until the fraud is resolved.

charlesdm 10y ago

If you do sufficient volume, I would assume you can negotiate the price per transaction way down.

Xixi 10y ago

Reduce the employee count from 12 to 1, who isn't even a real employee because the company has no revenue yet, and suddenly Stripe proposition is much more interesting: it allows you to focus on your product, and finding product-market fit, instead of sitting with someone in a bank. Even when that someone is kind, competent and helpful (as has been my experience with several French banks, special mention to the Banque Populaire de Lorraine), even with exactly zero revenues yet. At such an early stage the ease of integration is overall much more important than the smaller transaction fee.

nolok 10y ago
Oh I agree, but I think Stripe and Braintree have pretty much acquired the minds of people in that situation. Where they need to grow I believe is the next stage, the one I was in, "ok so we actually have an actual company that people want to pay for stuff, now we need to monetize on the internet", and in that area they're not that good.

joering2 10y ago

Its funny but I helped a company setup their MSP from tech point of view (integration) and being in high risk business, 3 years later they got dropped by 4 major MSPs in USA and only one that stays with them is.. Bank of America Merchants. Not only that, but with high risk their rates used to be 6-8% fee; with BOA its 1.7%. My take is that BOA is so huge that they don't pay as much attention to chargebacks as other players. Of course eventually you might get kicked out if you misbehave, but on the other hand with EMS they went through 3 months of application process (and over 30 changes to their website to satisfy compliance department), and then got dropped at the first chargeback after processing 500 transactions. EMS explanation - you can't have more than 0.00% chargebacks on your account, which, unless you don't sell online at all, is impossible. As of stripe, I never looked at them seriously enough, cause I was turned off by their false advertisement: happy woman that says "all my funds are at my bank account overnight, no questions ask". If you ever processed a dollar in USA, you know how far from truth that is -- in fact, process more than 5% of your monthly average with most MSPs and your funds will be on hold for few days for "manual review". That's a standard procedure and google's search for "stripe holds my funds" clearly shows this behavior. Stripe knows this but with their ads they target naive or non-experienced sellers.

Artemis2 10y ago

Stripe is a good option for developers, but they are very expensive. They lowered their prices two times this year in France (2.9%+30c -> 1.8%+25c -> 1.4%+25c), but that's not enough to compete with local alternatives for medium to large businesses. It's very common to get "Interchange+" pricing in France, where the actual costs of processing are passed onto the merchant, plus a more transparent gateway fee (like a few cents). The fact they lack some critical features for cheap and reliable card payments (3DS, Carte Bancaire network + transparent pricing) is a no-no for more traditional businesses.

lachyg 10y ago
Hi Artemis2, if you process more than €30,000 per month, we can offer volume discounting [0]. Separately, we have support for 3DS in private beta. [0] Including interchange plus!

Vertrauen 10y ago

> 3D secure As a customer, I hate 3D secure. When I get that shit thrown at me, I often just head over to Amazon and buy the same item there. Even if it is more expensive. Reasons: The 3D Secure form always looks so unprofessional it makes me shiver. It often is loaded in an iframe so it could come from god knows where. Often it plain out does not work. It aborts the transaction with "Transaction aborted" or something like that with no further info. So I sit there thinking "Uhm.. what now? Is my password wrong or what?". Why would I input even more of my data into your damn form? The more data I give you, the easier you can mess with me. Now my CC card number and verification number is not enough anymore. Now you want my 3D "secure" password. What do you want next?

nolok 10y ago
I can only talk from my experience, but with 3 different (french) banks it has been decent looking (paypal level), clear instructions and errors, let me retry 2 or 3 times if I type the wrong code. The only issue is that I agree it shouldn't be allowed in iframes. The vast majority of ecommerce here uses it nowaday, except for sum under 20€ usually.
thesimon 10y ago
Most banks in Germany seems to have switched to text messages or generator apps for the 3D Secure code. A lot better experience and protects against simple phishing.
stephenr 10y ago
I've used it via "verified by visa" with two banks in two countries. In both cases, there is a custom phrase that I provide the bank, which is then provided on the 3D-secure page where i enter the sms OTP. Honestly so long as they show me the phrase I gave them, I couldn't give two shits if it looks like it was designed in 2002, at least that keeps it consistent with the rest of their online banking page styles.
Nullabillity 10y ago
Here in Sweden, 3D secure is effectively synonymous with two-factor auth. It's insane that, at this point, the banks don't just outright block any payment recipient that doesn't use it.

dawhizkid 10y ago

Depends on your needs - Stripe is about convenience IMO and works best for small shops. I've heard from people in the payments industry that Stripe's actual payment tech is sub-par and dated - cannot compete with the Braintree/Adyens of the world. If you require complexity then choose a more established vendor.

lachyg 10y ago

(I work at Stripe.) We are supporting 3D-Secure in private beta—if you'd like access, please email me support@stripe.com (https://support.stripe.com/questions/does-stripe-support-3d-secure-verified-by-visa-mastercard-securecode https://support.stripe.com/questions/does-stripe-support-3d-...)

acdanger 10y ago

For those curious, a paper detailing some known issues with 3D Secure's security: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/fc10vbvsecurecode.pdf http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/fc10vbvsecurecode.pdf