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"Businesses in the EEA who are paying out in USD to a US-domiciled bank account will now incur a 1% fee, with a minimum fee of US$2.50 per payout." This is abs
by sleepyhead 4y ago
"Businesses in the EEA who are paying out in USD to a US-domiciled bank account will now incur a 1% fee, with a minimum fee of US$2.50 per payout."
This is absurd. A 1% fee to transfer USD to a USD bank account?
The alternative is to charge in another currency - which Stripe will put a 2% currency fee on.
This is already on top of their expensive transaction costs.
Will actively look for alternatives now.
- stevoski 4y agoYeah, this one is a bit over the top. 1% fee for USD to USD transfer. People from Stripe will probably appear in this discussion any moment now. It’ll be interesting seeing them try to explain this one.
- pifm_guy 4y agoPayPal does the same... For non-us citizens, USD's either incur a conversation fee to another currency, or an international withdrawal fee. There is no way to get money out without paying one or other fee.
- ddorian43 4y agoCan't find this on fees page https://www.paypal.com/al/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees https://www.paypal.com/al/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees. Which detail is it?
- tallytarik 4y agoFor Australia it’s on this page under Withdrawals Out of PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/au/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees https://www.paypal.com/au/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees Coincidentally they added the 3% withdrawal fee soon after Wise became a popular bank account option. PayPal was a great choice until then!
- ddorian43 4y agoBut it has a max-fee of $10 if you withdraw to an USD card, correct? So you can open an USD card on wise and withdraw there? But they probably have a limit? If yes, there's no workaround?
- tallytarik 4y agoThat’s interesting, I didn’t know withdrawing to a card in USD was possible. Maybe if I ever have to implement PayPal again I’ll test it out :)
- jq-r 4y agoTook me years to find out how they're scamming me on the conversion charges/exchange rate. Say you want to buy product in USD, and you come from non-USA country. Paypal would "helpfully" convert USD to your local currency using their own exchange rate (worse than any other one - goes without saying), charge the linked bank account (which probably is in USD anyway, to avoid paying for conversion fees), then the local bank would charge you again by converting the payment from the local currency to say USD because the account is in USD. Those practices probably cost me thousands over the years until I've figured out what was happening. I've turned on the option (intentionally buried and difficult to find) that tells Paypal to charge me in the currency I've was purchasing (USD), and not to do the conversion. But the fuckers had a habit of flipping that option so you're caught off guard. Needless to say, been Paypal-free for years now. One can imagine how much Paypal and banks profit from this scammy/dark-pattern behaviour on a global scale.
- pjan 4y agoAs far as I understand, you can payout in USD on a EEA domiciled account, and you won’t be incurring any fees. It’s the crossborder settlement which they charge for, which I don’t think is crazy, as it just reflects the underlying costs Stripe must be incurring themselves. As someone who ran a business in multiple countries, the bank always charged similar fees for these transfers between accounts. Stripe letting me settle directly in the account where I want the money to land, rather than me having to log in to my bank and initiating a transfer manually where fees are ~the same is definitely a better option, which I’m happy they offer.
- martinald 4y ago1% is enormous for this. I think the cost of a SWIFT transfer is maybe $3 to them, regardless of amount. If you're doing $100k/month of USD sales and payout once a week, it is a huge markup. They are clearly losing money on their (really expensive) forex fees so are trying to recoup this by this payment. There is no intrinsic reason I see why the fees are so high for this. Edit to add: they actually use ACH for US bank USD payouts, so even less cost than SWIFT.
- pjan 4y agoAgain, in my understanding is Stripe not forcing you to—-as a EEA business——settle USD in a US domiciled account; you can settle the USD in an EEA domiciled account and not incur the cost. If you then want to repatriate the money to the US with your bank, you can do so yourself. I also just looked it up how much this costs with my bank, and it's a minimum fee of $25 + agent/intermediary bank fees on top of it, for amounts less than $5,0000. I assume that Stripe can negotiate better rates though, but for the sake of simple pricing, and cost-averaging over different amounts (which are, given that they serve the long tail, likely heavy weighted on smaller amounts), it is not inconceivable that this 1% is closer to cost than one might imagine.
- poxrud 4y agoBanks do not charge a percentage of the transfer for wires or ACH. It is a set fee, usually in the range of $15-35 (stripe probably pays less than a dollar). That is a huge difference between charging 1% of the transaction.
- tallytarik 4y agoThis has also been the case in Australia since Stripe added the ability to pay out to a USD account last year. I was excited to ditch the 2% currency conversion fee - nope, just reduced to 1%. For what? A currency conversion fee can be somewhat defended, or, at the very least, “everyone else does it”... Now I want my funds in the same currency you accepted them, and I have to pay for the privilege?
- 02thoeva 4y agoSame here. This is a massive dent in any of our remaining profit. Realistically we'll need to look to leave