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It's convenience. People have gotten used to MC/Visa. Debit cards are just MC/Visa that comes straight out of your bank account. A true alternative would need

It's convenience. People have gotten used to MC/Visa. Debit cards are just MC/Visa that comes straight out of your bank account. A true alternative would need to tie into banks, work with the current payment systems seamlessly, and offer credit options with reasonable terms. Basically, it would have to be either funded by billionaires as a revenge passion project on MC/Visa or established by a country like the US as a public infrastructure.

blacklion 1y ago
I don't speak about MC/Visa in my last sentence but about Stripe, PayPal and all this middle layer between me as entrepreneur and my bank account. Why should I use them and not my bank directly? Why does this business exist? MC and Visa is inter-bank systems, I don't like what they do with policies, but I understand why they are needed to "link" all banks around the world together and allow any acquiring bank to get payment from card of any other issuing bank without direct link between them. It is understandable. And I, as card holder, don't need any men-in-the-middle when I pay at brick-and-mortar shop: such shop has account in some other bank and has payment terminal from this bank, not from PayPal. Why does online shop need Stripe, PayPal or other men-in-the-middle?
- BizarroLand 1y ago
  Probably because dealing with MC/Visa directly is a PITA, and that is likely on purpose even though they have a stranglehold on non-cash in-store payment processing worldwide. Every payment processor went through some version of this: https://kindgeek.com/blog/post/what-is-a-payment-processor-and-how-to-become-one https://kindgeek.com/blog/post/what-is-a-payment-processor-a... The convenience fee of not having to deal with that as a business owner seems worth it to me.
- jasonlotito 1y ago
  > And I, as card holder, don't need any men-in-the-middle when I pay at brick-and-mortar shop: such shop has account in some other bank and has payment terminal from this bank, not from PayPal. Why does online shop need Stripe, PayPal or other men-in-the-middle? Most likely the shop DOES have an intermediary like Stripe and PayPal, just not Stripe and PayPal. There are other POS providers out there. They might also be dealing directly with a bank and using a 3rd party for the equipment and integration. But all that is different from the web. POS/brick and mortar is different from online. It's generally more secure and less prone to fraud. > Why should I use them and not my bank directly? Why does this business exist? You can. You can literally go to a bank and ask about opening up a merchant account. However, the overhead is much higher. Basically, you'll be opening up your financial history and have a lot of rule sand regulations you'll have to follow. And you'll have to do the integration work if it's not already done. And don't expect Stripe/PayPal levels of easy integrations. And, on top of all that, you have PCI compliance you have to manage, and that's no small thing. On top of that, customers will be looking for PayPal/Stripe/Apple Pay/etc. Why? Because they are customer friendly and more convenient. But you can 100% go the route of getting your own merchant account, going through all the paperwork, putting aside sums of money, integrating, taking on all the risk yourself, by all means. Or you can slap PayPal/Stripe up and be done.

blacklion 1y ago

I don't speak about MC/Visa in my last sentence but about Stripe, PayPal and all this middle layer between me as entrepreneur and my bank account. Why should I use them and not my bank directly? Why does this business exist? MC and Visa is inter-bank systems, I don't like what they do with policies, but I understand why they are needed to "link" all banks around the world together and allow any acquiring bank to get payment from card of any other issuing bank without direct link between them. It is understandable. And I, as card holder, don't need any men-in-the-middle when I pay at brick-and-mortar shop: such shop has account in some other bank and has payment terminal from this bank, not from PayPal. Why does online shop need Stripe, PayPal or other men-in-the-middle?

BizarroLand 1y ago
Probably because dealing with MC/Visa directly is a PITA, and that is likely on purpose even though they have a stranglehold on non-cash in-store payment processing worldwide. Every payment processor went through some version of this: https://kindgeek.com/blog/post/what-is-a-payment-processor-and-how-to-become-one https://kindgeek.com/blog/post/what-is-a-payment-processor-a... The convenience fee of not having to deal with that as a business owner seems worth it to me.
jasonlotito 1y ago
> And I, as card holder, don't need any men-in-the-middle when I pay at brick-and-mortar shop: such shop has account in some other bank and has payment terminal from this bank, not from PayPal. Why does online shop need Stripe, PayPal or other men-in-the-middle? Most likely the shop DOES have an intermediary like Stripe and PayPal, just not Stripe and PayPal. There are other POS providers out there. They might also be dealing directly with a bank and using a 3rd party for the equipment and integration. But all that is different from the web. POS/brick and mortar is different from online. It's generally more secure and less prone to fraud. > Why should I use them and not my bank directly? Why does this business exist? You can. You can literally go to a bank and ask about opening up a merchant account. However, the overhead is much higher. Basically, you'll be opening up your financial history and have a lot of rule sand regulations you'll have to follow. And you'll have to do the integration work if it's not already done. And don't expect Stripe/PayPal levels of easy integrations. And, on top of all that, you have PCI compliance you have to manage, and that's no small thing. On top of that, customers will be looking for PayPal/Stripe/Apple Pay/etc. Why? Because they are customer friendly and more convenient. But you can 100% go the route of getting your own merchant account, going through all the paperwork, putting aside sums of money, integrating, taking on all the risk yourself, by all means. Or you can slap PayPal/Stripe up and be done.