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The bit about Amazon is the actual news contained in the story, if anyone here is interested in discussing that.

strictnein 9y ago
Yeah, this is really, really interesting: > Stripe’s new partnership with Amazon. com Inc., the largest and most sought-after customer on the internet. Over the past couple of weeks, Stripe began handling a large, though undisclosed, portion of Amazon’s transactions. Lots of questions about why Amazon would do something like that. Is it so they have a backup in case their systems go down? Or was Stripe actually able to get better rates than Amazon was, so this will save them money?
- pas 9y ago
  Amazon needs data to know where to expand, how to price things. Stripe has a lot of exactly that. Maybe...
  - bb611 9y ago
    I setup my brother's small business stripe integration, and I wrote and tested the API calls to charge customers. Stripe doesn't know anything about his business except transaction sizes, and a bunch of info they definitely can't resell (TIN) or is already public knowledge (business name, billing address). I doubt they have anything helpful for pricing, though they might be able to analyze gross transaction rates and geography. I have never checked what their contractual obligations are with that data, I imagine if they started sharing it that would get out pretty fast, and result in them losing customers rapidly.
- dawson 9y ago
  I suspect Amazon will, if this isn't already part of that discussion and or negotiation, acquire Stripe.
  - wumbolad 9y ago
    Yup, amazon has been all about acquisitions and broadening their horizons lately. When they acquired twitch, they had regulations put in place first test if things would stick. Then twitch was acquired after. Seems they're probably doing the same with Stripe.
- AdieuToLogic 9y ago
  Or was Stripe actually able to get better rates than Amazon was ... I can say with high confidence that this is not the case. Amazon processes through Paymentech on their Salem platform. Effectively, this is the Stratus side of the house which is optimized for high-volume batch oriented customers. Since Stripe is an ISO with FDMS, they will always have higher fees than a relationship with an "on-the-rails" bank for merchants with volume anywhere near Amazon. IMHO, a more likely scenario is that Amazon is looking to acquire Stripe, take over the ISO relationships with their merchants, and leverage from there.
jessaustin 9y ago
The new "Radar" service was the interesting thing to me. They're just throwing fraud protection in for free? Nice!
- Animats 9y ago
  Payment systems are mostly about fraud protection, as PayPal discovered in their early days. The default case is simple. It's dealing with problems that's expensive.

Yeah, this is really, really interesting: > Stripe’s new partnership with Amazon. com Inc., the largest and most sought-after customer on the internet. Over the past couple of weeks, Stripe began handling a large, though undisclosed, portion of Amazon’s transactions. Lots of questions about why Amazon would do something like that. Is it so they have a backup in case their systems go down? Or was Stripe actually able to get better rates than Amazon was, so this will save them money?

pas 9y ago
Amazon needs data to know where to expand, how to price things. Stripe has a lot of exactly that. Maybe...
- bb611 9y ago
  I setup my brother's small business stripe integration, and I wrote and tested the API calls to charge customers. Stripe doesn't know anything about his business except transaction sizes, and a bunch of info they definitely can't resell (TIN) or is already public knowledge (business name, billing address). I doubt they have anything helpful for pricing, though they might be able to analyze gross transaction rates and geography. I have never checked what their contractual obligations are with that data, I imagine if they started sharing it that would get out pretty fast, and result in them losing customers rapidly.
dawson 9y ago
I suspect Amazon will, if this isn't already part of that discussion and or negotiation, acquire Stripe.
- wumbolad 9y ago
  Yup, amazon has been all about acquisitions and broadening their horizons lately. When they acquired twitch, they had regulations put in place first test if things would stick. Then twitch was acquired after. Seems they're probably doing the same with Stripe.
AdieuToLogic 9y ago
Or was Stripe actually able to get better rates than Amazon was ... I can say with high confidence that this is not the case. Amazon processes through Paymentech on their Salem platform. Effectively, this is the Stratus side of the house which is optimized for high-volume batch oriented customers. Since Stripe is an ISO with FDMS, they will always have higher fees than a relationship with an "on-the-rails" bank for merchants with volume anywhere near Amazon. IMHO, a more likely scenario is that Amazon is looking to acquire Stripe, take over the ISO relationships with their merchants, and leverage from there.

jessaustin 9y ago

The new "Radar" service was the interesting thing to me. They're just throwing fraud protection in for free? Nice!

Animats 9y ago
Payment systems are mostly about fraud protection, as PayPal discovered in their early days. The default case is simple. It's dealing with problems that's expensive.