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Stripe launches beta in the UK
- whyleyc 14y agoHave been waiting a long time for this :) When announcing it onstage Patrick said anyone interested in participating in the beta should email him: patrick [at] stripe [dot] com I hope he's ready for the email deluge !
- mmahemoff 14y agoMailed, thanks. For the benefit of others in the UK, if you sign up right now, the only countries on Stripe.com are US and Canada; so this step is a necessary one.
- josscrowcroft 14y agoThanks for the heads up. It's finally (almost) here! This is the most excited I've ever been about a product launch. They've done a fantastic job keeping everyone in the dark and silently hoping. The thought of being able to easily charge credit cards on my sites has given me renewed faith in new business ventures.
- bambax 14y agoIs it coming to France soon? (Apparently there's at least one job opening in Paris so there's hope!) Let's ask him! ;-) Not really related, but here's a picture I took of Patrick at this year's Startup School http://bambax.smugmug.com/Other/2012-10StartupSchool/27080040_bVJ942#!i=2272100972&k=BxcNNMf&lb=1&s=A http://bambax.smugmug.com/Other/2012-10StartupSchool/2708004...
- pc 14y agoWe can't say much about timelines since so much is outside of our control, but we definitely want to launch in France.
- pc 14y agoReady :-)
- arctangent 14y agoEmail sent :-) Perhaps we should all use the title "UK beta" to help you filter them.
- jbrooksuk 14y agoI've sent an email too. I'd say "You have no idea how much this would mean to the English folk", but you do, so I can only sit and hope you accept me! ukjbrooks [at] gmail [dot] com :)
- mbesto 14y agoAny plans to do direct debit with the payment processer in the UK? (sorry, if it states that in the TC article...but I don't click TC articles)
- mrkmcknz 14y agoAny idea on a timeframe for full UK launch? Stripe is a service I'd love to use, however I'm not yet at a stage(small revenues) where it would be worth bothering you to be part of the 'closed beta'.
- pc 14y agoFeel free to email! That way you'll definitely get invited when we launch fully. With regard to timeframes -- it really depends on what we discover during the beta. There are no major, obvious blockers right now, though.
- edanm 14y agoWill launches in new countries start happening faster after the first one? I have no idea which part of the process is the major blocker for this kind of service, but I would imagine that if it's laws, then every extra country will take a lot of extra work. I ask this as an Israeli that would love to have a good service, but seeing as we're a tiny country I doubt we're high up on the list :)
- jbrooksuk 14y agoThis is one of the best things that's happened to the UK in the payment industry in years.
- jonascopenhagen 14y agoAwesome. Here's hoping Denmark/Scandinavia is next.
- PhilipA 14y agoI concur. The options in Denmark are at the moment pretty limited.
- jonascopenhagen 14y agoWell, yes and no - we have all the normal options that involve a merchant account and so on. What we don't have yet is the simple-to-setup solution that Stripe offers (unless https://www.paymill.com/ https://www.paymill.com/ offers that solution - I'm not sure).
- StavrosK 14y agoWhy can't you use the UK version? With all of the EU being integrated, shouldn't it work across the entire thing?
- mmahemoff 14y agoTheir statement says "EUR coming soon" so it should be a good sign for Euro countries.
- StavrosK 14y agoAh, hmm. I guess it's probably a situation where just coming to the UK is already 90% of coming to the whole EU.
- mattmanser 14y agoA subset of European countries use the euro of which Denmark is not one of that subset.
- jonascopenhagen 14y agoEU isn't (yet) integrated in that sense (I wrote something on this issue some time ago: http://jonasbentzen.com/stop-generalizing-about-europe/ http://jonasbentzen.com/stop-generalizing-about-europe/ ). We /might/ be able to use the UK version - let's hope that's the case. But then there's currency conversion issues (the UK uses pounds, some EU countries use the Euro, the Scandinavian countries use their own currency, etc.). On top of that there will probably be extra fees for transferring funds from a UK bank/entity to a Danish one, etc.
- sschueller 14y agoCool, I hope Switzerland won't be last. 7m people isn't interesting enough for many companies. :(
- mobweb 14y agoSeeing how Switzerland isn't a member of the EU, I'd say don't get your hopes up anytime soon...
- lvh 14y agoI'm not sure if that would be to their detriment. Demand in other EU countries is likely to go down, since it's plausible to incorporate (or incorporate a subsidiary) in the UK to get Stripe now :)
- zura 14y agoSame goes for Georgia (4.5m). Not even Paypal... So far only Skrill (Moneybookers).
- cybesun 14y agoDoes anyone know an alternative to stripe for switzerland?
- jonascopenhagen 14y agohttps://www.paymill.com/ https://www.paymill.com/. There's been some criticism of them elsewhere in this thread, though. I don't have any experience with them myself.
- nulluk 14y agoReally good news. Can't wait to start taking payments by stripe for our "Stripe for Magento" extension, how about that for meta?
- 10dpd 14y agoAwesome news! Is it possible to use Stripe to handle third party payments? E.g. A site owner (A) creates a website. A user (B) of that site wants to sell a product. (B) creates a product page and accept payments from their own customers (C). Ideally (C) would pay (B) using Stripe, and (A) would receive a percentage of the revenue received from (C).
- NuZZ 14y agoAustralia is pretty much dominated by Paypal. Was excited to get to use Stripe for a new project but got sad when I realized it wasn't available here.
- philoye 14y agoPin [1] just launched last week. It is a similar all-in-one payment solution (no merchant account needed), but homegrown in Australia. [1] https://pin.net.au https://pin.net.au
- coffeecheque 14y agoWhy does it have a monthly fee? What are the differences between the US and AUS markets that require Australian users to pay three different fees to use a payment gateway?
- nwh 14y agoI was part of the beta and wondered that too. It's almost like they don't expect to cover their internal costs with their (reasonably pricy) cut of each transaction.
- rmccue 14y agoFrom what I've heard, the Big Four banks aren't being the most cooperative, so my guess would be that Pin has had to make concessions to them.
- lucian1900 14y agoYou could try Braintree, it's what GitHub uses.
- ajtaylor 14y agoAt $work we use EWay and have been pretty happy with them as far as I know. Their API looks decent (it was integrated way before my time) and it just works. No idea about the costs though.
- ab 14y ago
- rikacomet 14y agostripe should launch in India, I'm more than ready to help out with that. The market here, for stripe is huge! A lot of alternatives exist, but all of them frankly su%k!
- shrikant 14y agoI don't think Stripe have any technical problems launching in India, it's pretty much all about navigating the regulatory hurdles. They'd quickly get bashed into submission by the Reserve Bank of India guidelines, which is what happened to Paypal. The RBI will force all payment processors to be regulated as banks, or conduct business entirely through banks.
- rikacomet 14y agono, what happened to paypal was post 26/11 revelation that the splinter cells had used paypal to transfer money. RBI is just another central bank. Stripe is way different than Paypal. And yes, paypal is still running, the loss of business is due to the fact that they still haven't worked out the tax technicalities, and their UI has become complex. EDIT: Just want to add, that right now is the right time to invest in India, because of the market conditions in general, organised retail is picking up, credit/debit card usage is increasing again, mobile payments has been introduced, taxation policy would become unified starting April 1 under GST& other singular taxes, and the economic potential of India. India is 3rd on Purchasing Power Parity, yet it is only the barely top 10 in terms of GDP, and it all points to a under-saturated market. Really! Entering India, can make stripe into a multi-billion dollar company, if done right
- pc86 14y agoI'm starting to hate Stripe threads because all it becomes is people complaining it's not available in their country. And of course people complaining about people complaining about it not being available in their country.
- 10dpd 14y agofunction complain(people) { complain(people); }
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- aeosynth 14y agoBitcoin is available in all countries; maybe people should look into that instead of waiting for stripe to arrive.
- arkitaip 14y agoWhat you see as complaining maybe Stripe sees as valuable feedback that they can use in their business strategy. Imagine if there were 0 "complaints" - couldn't that be interpreted as a meaningful signal that interest in Stripe outside of the US is low?
- pc 14y agoYeah, you're right. Though I can see how it'd be kinda annoying for others, we definitely find it really useful to hear about the things people wish Stripe did differently.
- cohort 14y agoIs there a sign up form for beta?
- latterd 14y agoI want to know this also? However there is: https://stripe.com/global https://stripe.com/global You can sign up to get notified about UK launch, you could try that, I have.
- thomseddon 14y agoDoes anyone know why the link has changed from TNW (http://thenextweb.com/uk/2013/03/01/stripe-uk-europe-launch/ http://thenextweb.com/uk/2013/03/01/stripe-uk-europe-launch/) to TechCrunch? It's not really important, just curious if this is some kind of mod preference for TC? :)
- benologist 14y agoCould be because TNW is a rag. Half their article is just plugging more of their own articles about a different company.
- k-mcgrady 14y agoAnd TC is better? All these blogs do is repeat press releases/each other and link to more of their own articles. Mods shouldn't be deciding which tech blog is best especially when there was nothing wrong with the information in TNW.
- benologist 14y agoI agree completely about the quality of these sites. I'm not saying TC (and definitely not AOL) are better. They are just better this time. Shitty journalism should not be rewarded, so I find it hard to sympathize against the mods decision.
- amirmc 14y agoChanging titles is one thing but changing the URL to a different site seems a step too far.
- whyleyc 14y agoGood question - I was the original submitter and didn't change it, so must have been one of the mod's. I preferred TNW's version as there is more context in it. Also TNW had the story first - Mike Butcher was late on stage after Patrick's announcement because he was furiously writing up the story for TC :)
- egze 14y agoAny plans for Germany?
- jonascopenhagen 14y agohttps://www.paymill.com/ https://www.paymill.com/ is a German company and offers a Stripe-like service for Germany and a large number of other countries.
- DoubleMalt 14y agoI was happy to give paymill a try as Stripe was not available in Europe. I even fixed their Java API (The pull request was accepted pretty swiftly) However they lost me when they introduced a breaking change to the API without notification. We were still in the testing phase, but this is just a big NONO. Also they did not react to request about getting a new contract because of a changed Bank account. Happy to use stripe though.
- pbiggar 14y agoYou'll love how stripe handles breaking changes. Each time they make a breaking change, they create a new version of the API, and keep all customers pinned on the current one. Then, in the UI I can choose to switch to a new version of the API, and see a list of what's changed. Of the 10 API versions since I started, 2 might have broken something for me, but I can just ignore that until I find time to upgrade. Stellar stuff!
- thairu 14y agoWe definitely want to launch in Germany, but can't say much about timelines as yet
- kevbam 14y agoFinally!!!!!!
- RobAley 14y agoDoes it support Verified by Visa or Mastercard SecureCode? Not that I like them much, but they provide some protection for merchants against chargebacks.
- Silhouette 14y agoI would also like to hear about their plans in this area. The current information on the Stripe web site says they don't use 3D Secure: https://support.stripe.com/questions/3d-secure https://support.stripe.com/questions/3d-secure I think if they're going to be a serious card payment service in Europe, that will need to change reasonably quickly. With the issue of transferring liability for chargebacks, saying "Well, US banks don't do it, and European banks understand that" isn't going to cut it for long with an international client base. After all, US banks don't do a lot of things, which is why we all have to use these Palaeolithic era card schemes to accept payments from US customers in the first place.
- majc2 14y agoAbsolutely; just to expand on the point - 3D secure is now prevenalant, if you just check for enrolment with 3D Secure - as a vendor you're generally no longer liable to chargebacks (there are a few edge cases around pre-paid and commercial cards). It doesn't matter if the issuing bank is signed up or not. Paymill already support 3D secure - so I would have to imagine that stripe's 3D secure support can't be far behind.
- TomGullen 14y agoI was wondering why Paypal were phoning me up a lot recently to see how I was doing and if I needed any help with anything! We're lucky enough to be on the Beta, can't wait to dig in and start the transition.
- tomelders 14y agoToday is a watershed moment for UK developers. I don't think it's hyperbole to say that. In a few years, we will look back on our lives before this day and wonder a) Why the hell we put up with all that crap for so long. b) Why didn't we build Stripe ourselves.
- naz 14y ago> b) Why didn't we build Stripe ourselves. In a way, we did. There are a couple of UK developers at Stripe -- and we want more: https://stripe.com/jobs https://stripe.com/jobs.
- lotsofcows 14y agoHow does Stripe mitigate PCIDSS requirements?
- jeremyjh 14y agoThe card number never hits the merchant's web server, so currently they do not have to be compliant. There is talk in the industry that this will be changing actually; as the card number is still vulnerable to javascript that run's in the merchant's web page. So if the merchant is hacked and their website is compromised then CC numbers are vulnerable. So it is likely at least some of the applicable PCI DSS requirements (and auditing of them) will eventually be required.
- lotsofcows 14y agoAnyone who takes credit card payments must be PCIDSS compliant. How the payment's taken is irrelevant. Presumably Stripe reduces this to the level of completing the SAQ A?
- jusben1369 14y agoThat's the right way to explain it Yes.
- Geee 14y ago"Article 49 of the Treaty on the functioning of the EU (the freedom of establishment principle) allows entrepreneurs to set up a company in any EU country." http://europa.eu/youreurope/business/starting-business/setting-up/index_en.htm http://europa.eu/youreurope/business/starting-business/setti... Also, "Any business legally established in an EU country may open a secondary establishment (office, agency, branch or subsidiary) in another EU country." http://europa.eu/youreurope/business/expanding-business/opening-branch/index_en.htm http://europa.eu/youreurope/business/expanding-business/open... Now, someone should set up a web service which makes it easy for EU citizens to incorporate in the UK.
- jmonegro 14y agohttp://www.ukincorp.co.uk/ http://www.ukincorp.co.uk/
- adrianhoward 14y agoNow, someone should set up a web service which makes it easy for EU citizens to incorporate in the UK. Dozens already http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/toolsToHelp/formationAgents.shtml http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/toolsToHelp/formationAgents...
- petercooper 14y agoOr just apply to Companies House directly: https://ewf.companieshouse.gov.uk//runpage?page=welcome https://ewf.companieshouse.gov.uk//runpage?page=welcome - There's almost nothing to it. I did it a couple of years ago and it literally took 15 minutes of my time and cost £15.
- StavrosK 14y agoTook me literally ten minutes and 10 pounds or so to incorporate. I use companies made simple, I am happy with them.
- konradb 14y agoOut of interest what makes Stripe compelling over other alternatives such as Sagepay? This seemed to be an already solved problem ([company like sagepay] -> merchant account -> bank account) but there's a lot of fanfair here so I must not be understanding what makes Stripe different.
- adrianhoward 14y agoShort version: * Sane well thought out APIs that let you do stuff very, very quickly and easily * You don't have have a merchant account - so the time taken to get payments up and running drops from weeks/months to almost nothing * Attractive fee structure - especially for bootstrapped projects (you don't pay them until you get paid)
- TomAnthony 14y agoThis is great.. but when is it coming to the UK!?!? ... Oh.
- colinmarc 14y agoBeat me to the joke!
- nicholassmith 14y agoThis is great news for UK businesses, welcome to our wonderfully miserably cold shores Stripe. Although, you know it's much nicer up North outside London. Much nicer.
- benhalllondon 14y agoThe founders are from Ireland, they know miserable cold shores!
- nicholassmith 14y agoThis is great news for UK businesses, welcome to our wonderfully miserably cold shores Stripe. Although, you know it's much nicer up North outside London. Much nicer.
- chaghalibaghali 14y agoI'd like to give a shout out to the guys from Paymill (www.paymill.com) - they sponsor the HNLondon events and when Patrick from Stripe turned up a few nights ago they were the ones that asked him to get on stage and give a quick talk, despite the obvious overlap of their products.