5 ms·

WePay: The Online Payment Start-up Behind Occupy Wall Street

101 points by billclerico 15y ago

SeanDav 15y ago
I would love to see more services like this accessible outside the US. If PayPal is the 800 pound gorilla in the US it is the 1000-pound-armour-plated-gorilla-with-phasers-set-to-evaporate in Europe.
- lucisferre 15y ago
  Just curious, is Wepay not available outside of the US? I was under the impression it could be used in Canada, but perhaps not.
  - notatoad 15y ago
    it is not. we don't get any of the cool payment gateways in canada.
    - lucisferre 15y ago
      That is most unfortunate. The 30c flat fees most gateways have make selling things that are <$10 pretty unaffordable. Any suggestions? I'm wondering if it is possible to register as a business in the US or even just have a US bank account?
      - notatoad 15y ago
        >I'm wondering if it is possible to register as a business in the US or even just have a US bank account? maybe possible, if your customers don't mind paying in american dollars.
- gst 15y ago
  I think there are two main reasons for this: (1) US laws make it rather hard for payment companies to operate outside the US (mainly due to money laundering laws). If you want to operate in Europe it seems much easier if the whole company is located there. (2) There's just not as much demand for this. The US banking system feels archaic and you typically can't even electronically transfer funds between bank accounts (if not both of the accounts belong to yourself). In Europe - on the other hand - you typically can do free wire transfers and just need the recipient's IBAN and BIC numbers for this.
  - stfu 15y ago
    But you have to consider that for end consumers the transfer fees are just ridiculous. Depending on your bank account settings it is not unusual to have a €15 transaction fee + 0.20% of the transfered amount. I have often customers from other EU countries who don't have PayPal and prefer sending money through registered mail just because other options are not economical for smaller amounts of money.
    - gst 15y ago
      So far I have bank accounts in Austria and Germany and in both countries transfers to any other bank within the EU are completely free (and I don't have to pay any monthly fee for the bank accounts either). The user interface is also quite OK for those banks. Just enter the transaction information on the Web site and confirm the security code sent to you via short message.
davidpoarch 15y ago
The article states: "[WePay's] ambition: to move beyond what WePay calls the “unstructured economy” to be the dominant way people make payments and buy things online. ...Since WePay can’t yet match PayPal’s brand or awareness, it aims to offer more appealing design, an expedited set-up process and better customer service." If WePay intends to overtake PayPal, I think it will need to do more than that. An "appealing design, an expedited set-up process and better customer service" are easy to replicate. How about thinking out of the box and re-engineering the system? How about focusing on and addressing PayPal's weaknesses? How about creating a system that inherently includes automatic fraud prevention (for both buyers and sellers)? How about minimizing (nearly eliminating) all dispute resolution scenarios? How about extending such protection to the services marketplace (as opposed to just products)? How about creating a truly globalized payments platform (there are several countries where PayPal fails because credit cards are not used or available as the main form of payment)? I am a co-founder of a nascent third party payments aggregator (TPPA) called PayGuard. We are currently building our Beta, and our system addresses all these issues.
- Steltek 15y ago
  I think the biggest asset would simply being "not PayPal". PP has been cultivating a bad PR problem lately and systems like these will have a social lock-in effect. Not quite as bad as Facebook vs Google+ but people would be reluctant to wander too far out of bounds, especially when bank accounts are concerned. You seem to have some great goals yourself, however. Good luck to you!
  - EREFUNDO 15y ago
    Actually it is the sellers that PayPal is turning off. Their dispute resolution policies are abstruse and keep changing in their attempt to protect buyers. They have relied too heavily in freezing, closing, and even withdrawing money from sellers’ accounts without prior notice. So many eBay sellers who have relied on PayPal had their entire businesses destroyed with one incident. A payment system that focuses on preventive security would not rely on such heavy handed tactics when resolving disputes between buyers and sellers. If all users (buyers and sellers) have an equal distribution of control during the entire transaction then incentives for committing fraud on both sides will be effectively eliminated. Right now one party gets paid then the other has to wait for his merchandise. PayGuard will solve these problems. The challenge now is to get people to start trusting new players in the market.
dw5ight 15y ago
stick it to the man, wepay!!!!
latchkey 15y ago
I'm a huge fan of WePay. My founder and I needed a Java implementation of their api, so we wrote one: https://github.com/lookfirst/WePay-Java-SDK https://github.com/lookfirst/WePay-Java-SDK They are thinking out of the box by providing services that developers need. A well documented API and near real-time feedback with their core engineers. In this regard, PayPal is a joke.
- sounds 15y ago
  I'll add my data point as well. I needed a no-brainer payment system. I didn't even have to set up a server - 5 minutes, done. I've tried on paypal. I can add a PayPal button to my own page but I didn't have a page for my project this time. I would have had to set it all up (again). No, thanks!
- ryan_f 15y ago
  I've had a different experience using their Ruby SDK and have not found it as friendly for developers. Their API is decently documented but their implementation for paying is dependent on redirects and URL callbacks. The ruby SDK provides little more than a wrapper for passing and retrieving JSON. Some may prefer this but I felt that I was reinventing the wheel. I am staying with them for one project because of some services they have that no one else offers. I am rooting for WePay but they need to work more on their SDKs to be developer friendly.
  - latchkey 15y ago
    I'm curious, what more did you expect? Exactly what wheels are being reinvented here? Their API is pretty brain dead simple (it is just a matter of passing urls and data around) and the documentation is pretty good once you understand the general concepts. I've given them a bit of feedback on things in the docs that needed improvement, and they've turned around with fixes within minutes sometimes. I think that if you give them feedback on their apis mailing list about what you'd like to see added or changed, they'd be more than happy to listen. That is what really encourages me about this company.
    - 15y ago
JumpCrisscross 15y ago
How does WePay contrast with Stripe?
- joelrunyon 15y ago
  From what I know, WePay is much more friendly to everyday users. From what I've seen of Stripe, it seems to be more developer focused. I've used WePay and they have really great customer service. Stripe is intriguing, but I haven't had a reason to use it yet. Either way, I'm happy to see as many newcomers take on paypal as possible!
- tlrobinson 15y ago
  I think WePay is easier for non-developers to setup (no website or programming required), while Stripe is more focused on making their API awesome for developers.
  - ryan_f 15y ago
    After integrating both, this is right on the money. WePay is great for what it offers on a basic level. Stripe is better with integrating with a site and its features.
  - SoftwareMaven 15y ago
    And Stripe really is awesome for developers. I just integrated it into our site and it was a great experience.
- latchkey 15y ago
  For us, Stripe is lacking a marketplace feature. We use this feature to sell someone else's widgets on our website. The money is collected into a FDIC insured bank account for the seller, that we can create with an API call. Money goes immediately into that account as soon as it comes in. We take our cut, wepay takes theirs and the money is deposited. The seller can then xfer the money into their own bank account. We also use an iframe based form for collecting the payment information. This way, it integrates cleanly into our website and we don't have to manage any of that process. This is a feature that PayPal has, but they have a horrible API and even worse documentation. WePay's is simple, clean and full of awesome. They also have a nice staging system that identically mirrors their production system, so it makes it easy to do development and testing.
mattchew 15y ago
The Forbes headline seems to say WePay is backing or at least somehow rooting for Occupy Wall Street. It's a misleading headline. OWS is using WePay for donations, and WePay didn't shut down the OWS accounts, omg the controversy.

101 points by billclerico 15y ago

I would love to see more services like this accessible outside the US. If PayPal is the 800 pound gorilla in the US it is the 1000-pound-armour-plated-gorilla-with-phasers-set-to-evaporate in Europe.

lucisferre 15y ago
Just curious, is Wepay not available outside of the US? I was under the impression it could be used in Canada, but perhaps not.
- notatoad 15y ago
  it is not. we don't get any of the cool payment gateways in canada.
  - lucisferre 15y ago
    That is most unfortunate. The 30c flat fees most gateways have make selling things that are <$10 pretty unaffordable. Any suggestions? I'm wondering if it is possible to register as a business in the US or even just have a US bank account?
    - notatoad 15y ago
      >I'm wondering if it is possible to register as a business in the US or even just have a US bank account? maybe possible, if your customers don't mind paying in american dollars.
gst 15y ago
I think there are two main reasons for this: (1) US laws make it rather hard for payment companies to operate outside the US (mainly due to money laundering laws). If you want to operate in Europe it seems much easier if the whole company is located there. (2) There's just not as much demand for this. The US banking system feels archaic and you typically can't even electronically transfer funds between bank accounts (if not both of the accounts belong to yourself). In Europe - on the other hand - you typically can do free wire transfers and just need the recipient's IBAN and BIC numbers for this.
- stfu 15y ago
  But you have to consider that for end consumers the transfer fees are just ridiculous. Depending on your bank account settings it is not unusual to have a €15 transaction fee + 0.20% of the transfered amount. I have often customers from other EU countries who don't have PayPal and prefer sending money through registered mail just because other options are not economical for smaller amounts of money.
  - gst 15y ago
    So far I have bank accounts in Austria and Germany and in both countries transfers to any other bank within the EU are completely free (and I don't have to pay any monthly fee for the bank accounts either). The user interface is also quite OK for those banks. Just enter the transaction information on the Web site and confirm the security code sent to you via short message.

davidpoarch 15y ago

The article states: "[WePay's] ambition: to move beyond what WePay calls the “unstructured economy” to be the dominant way people make payments and buy things online. ...Since WePay can’t yet match PayPal’s brand or awareness, it aims to offer more appealing design, an expedited set-up process and better customer service." If WePay intends to overtake PayPal, I think it will need to do more than that. An "appealing design, an expedited set-up process and better customer service" are easy to replicate. How about thinking out of the box and re-engineering the system? How about focusing on and addressing PayPal's weaknesses? How about creating a system that inherently includes automatic fraud prevention (for both buyers and sellers)? How about minimizing (nearly eliminating) all dispute resolution scenarios? How about extending such protection to the services marketplace (as opposed to just products)? How about creating a truly globalized payments platform (there are several countries where PayPal fails because credit cards are not used or available as the main form of payment)? I am a co-founder of a nascent third party payments aggregator (TPPA) called PayGuard. We are currently building our Beta, and our system addresses all these issues.

Steltek 15y ago
I think the biggest asset would simply being "not PayPal". PP has been cultivating a bad PR problem lately and systems like these will have a social lock-in effect. Not quite as bad as Facebook vs Google+ but people would be reluctant to wander too far out of bounds, especially when bank accounts are concerned. You seem to have some great goals yourself, however. Good luck to you!
- EREFUNDO 15y ago
  Actually it is the sellers that PayPal is turning off. Their dispute resolution policies are abstruse and keep changing in their attempt to protect buyers. They have relied too heavily in freezing, closing, and even withdrawing money from sellers’ accounts without prior notice. So many eBay sellers who have relied on PayPal had their entire businesses destroyed with one incident. A payment system that focuses on preventive security would not rely on such heavy handed tactics when resolving disputes between buyers and sellers. If all users (buyers and sellers) have an equal distribution of control during the entire transaction then incentives for committing fraud on both sides will be effectively eliminated. Right now one party gets paid then the other has to wait for his merchandise. PayGuard will solve these problems. The challenge now is to get people to start trusting new players in the market.

dw5ight 15y ago

stick it to the man, wepay!!!!

latchkey 15y ago

I'm a huge fan of WePay. My founder and I needed a Java implementation of their api, so we wrote one: https://github.com/lookfirst/WePay-Java-SDK https://github.com/lookfirst/WePay-Java-SDK They are thinking out of the box by providing services that developers need. A well documented API and near real-time feedback with their core engineers. In this regard, PayPal is a joke.

sounds 15y ago
I'll add my data point as well. I needed a no-brainer payment system. I didn't even have to set up a server - 5 minutes, done. I've tried on paypal. I can add a PayPal button to my own page but I didn't have a page for my project this time. I would have had to set it all up (again). No, thanks!
ryan_f 15y ago
I've had a different experience using their Ruby SDK and have not found it as friendly for developers. Their API is decently documented but their implementation for paying is dependent on redirects and URL callbacks. The ruby SDK provides little more than a wrapper for passing and retrieving JSON. Some may prefer this but I felt that I was reinventing the wheel. I am staying with them for one project because of some services they have that no one else offers. I am rooting for WePay but they need to work more on their SDKs to be developer friendly.
- latchkey 15y ago
  I'm curious, what more did you expect? Exactly what wheels are being reinvented here? Their API is pretty brain dead simple (it is just a matter of passing urls and data around) and the documentation is pretty good once you understand the general concepts. I've given them a bit of feedback on things in the docs that needed improvement, and they've turned around with fixes within minutes sometimes. I think that if you give them feedback on their apis mailing list about what you'd like to see added or changed, they'd be more than happy to listen. That is what really encourages me about this company.
  - 15y ago

JumpCrisscross 15y ago

How does WePay contrast with Stripe?

joelrunyon 15y ago
From what I know, WePay is much more friendly to everyday users. From what I've seen of Stripe, it seems to be more developer focused. I've used WePay and they have really great customer service. Stripe is intriguing, but I haven't had a reason to use it yet. Either way, I'm happy to see as many newcomers take on paypal as possible!
tlrobinson 15y ago
I think WePay is easier for non-developers to setup (no website or programming required), while Stripe is more focused on making their API awesome for developers.
- ryan_f 15y ago
  After integrating both, this is right on the money. WePay is great for what it offers on a basic level. Stripe is better with integrating with a site and its features.
- SoftwareMaven 15y ago
  And Stripe really is awesome for developers. I just integrated it into our site and it was a great experience.
latchkey 15y ago
For us, Stripe is lacking a marketplace feature. We use this feature to sell someone else's widgets on our website. The money is collected into a FDIC insured bank account for the seller, that we can create with an API call. Money goes immediately into that account as soon as it comes in. We take our cut, wepay takes theirs and the money is deposited. The seller can then xfer the money into their own bank account. We also use an iframe based form for collecting the payment information. This way, it integrates cleanly into our website and we don't have to manage any of that process. This is a feature that PayPal has, but they have a horrible API and even worse documentation. WePay's is simple, clean and full of awesome. They also have a nice staging system that identically mirrors their production system, so it makes it easy to do development and testing.

mattchew 15y ago

The Forbes headline seems to say WePay is backing or at least somehow rooting for Occupy Wall Street. It's a misleading headline. OWS is using WePay for donations, and WePay didn't shut down the OWS accounts, omg the controversy.