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Introducing Stripe UK

371 points by woodrow 13y ago

nhangen 13y ago
Really excited about this because Stripe is the most popular gateway for our WordPress plugin and this opens new doors for many of our customers in the UK that don't wan't to use Paypal. Would love to see them continue spreading East.
markokrajnc 13y ago
This is great! I have been waiting for this for a loooooong time! I hope they will come also to other European countries soon. But at least in UK! This is great!
- thibaut_barrere 13y ago
  They are already available in France (and apparently Ireland too): https://support.stripe.com/questions/what-countries-does-stripe-support https://support.stripe.com/questions/what-countries-does-str...
  - pc 13y ago
    We're in private beta in France and Ireland. (I work at Stripe.) We try to make sure that things are very comprehensively tested before we allow public signups.
    - Concours 13y ago
      Can't wait to see you come to Germany, any plans for the beta yet ?
      - collision 13y ago
        We're working on it.
        workhere-io 13y ago
        How about Scandinavia - are those countries in the pipeline?
        thairu 13y ago
        Yup. We are working on bringing Stripe to Scandinavia. Please sign up to be notified when we launch at https://stripe.com/global https://stripe.com/global
    - conradfr 13y ago
      Great news, although I work now for a somewhat competitor. Anyway I do more and more api for my personal projects (thanks to AngularJS and mobile) and the Stripe api & docs have been my main inspirations and technical references.
- toretore 13y ago
  I'd really be interested in knowing why it's not "Stripe EU" instead. What sort of problems they had trying to do that, and what needs improvement for that to become reality.
  - pc 13y ago
    Mostly because there's a bunch of subtlety around bank transfers and identity verification. The EU simplifies a lot of the regulatory framework but the actual operations still entail a decent amount of heterogeneity from country-to-country.
    - toretore 13y ago
      So it's because of technical/operational and not regulatory or legal problems? What about SEPA, or is that just for "regular people"?
  - markokrajnc 13y ago
    I don't know for sure, but I guess the credit ratings are not available in all EU countries. ("Paperwork" is different in every EU country.)
helipad 13y ago
This is good news, and hopefully websites will vote with their feet. Stripe may work out more expensive than PayPal, but that extra cost is probably offset by the amount spent on heart medication.
- rs 13y ago
  Stripe has flat pricing: https://stripe.com/gb/help/pricing https://stripe.com/gb/help/pricing Paypal has tiered pricing: https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-receiving-fees-outside https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-receiv... So, it depends on which tier you're on for PayPal, it may go either way. However, I suspect most people are sitting on 3.4%+20p on PayPal will find Stripe cheaper.
- madaxe 13y ago
  Never mind PayPal, they're more expensive than the commodity players in the UK, like SagePay. Stripe's strategy is all about developer-led adoption, and their approach to their tech belies this. Unfortunately, in reality, developers have as much say as to which PSP their client uses as the cabin boy does what course the captain should sail. I run an eCommerce firm - we've mooted stripe to all of our customers, as we like the look of their approach - but none will adopt, purely on the basis of cost.
  - pc 13y ago
    For what it's worth, a lot of our bigger users (from MoMA to Walmart) ended up using Stripe because their developers successfully pushed it internally. Could you drop me a line? patrick@stripe.com. I have an idea I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on.
    - madaxe 13y ago
      Sure, done.
  - nandemo 13y ago
    If you're doing typical e-commerce -- as opposed to, say, SaaS -- the cost of payment processing seems especially important, since it might eat into your (typically low) margins. Why would you recommend Stripe over an established, cheaper processor?
aculver 13y ago
For any Ruby on Rails developers in the UK who may now be jumping into Stripe for the first time because of this, Pete Keen has just released (or is releasing today) a new book called Mastering Modern Payments (http://www.petekeen.net/mastering-modern-payments http://www.petekeen.net/mastering-modern-payments) which focus on Stripe and Rails.
- smickie 13y ago
  I've been using the UK beta for a few months. Honestly, the API docs and Gem are so good you don't need a book. From sitting down can looking over the docs to charging my debit card for a monthly subscription took about an hour (and I'm not even that good with ruby, if you're a pro you could do it in half an hour I reckon).
  - aculver 13y ago
    I totally agree that Stripe is easy to get started with and I believe their documentation is the best in the industry. But, as someone who processes payments in the six figures annually with Stripe, I feel there is definitely still room for a book like Pete's, in the same way that there was a place for a book about design patterns even among talented and experienced developers. His book builds on the platform, rather than replacing the documentation. I manage a drop-in Rails engine for adding Stripe subscriptions to an app (http://github.com/andrewculver/koudoku http://github.com/andrewculver/koudoku) and the number one piece of feedback I get is that people wish they had heard of it before they integrated Stripe subscriptions in their app. This tells me that there is room for gems like mine and books like Pete's in the little ecosystem Stripe has created.
    - rhuppert 13y ago
      I'm happy to say that I will not be a member of this "before" group. Thanks for pointing it out today. I look forward to using your gem and buying Pete's book.
  - agduncan 13y ago
    I was of the understanding that UK debit cards are not currently supported. Has this recently changed?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
samwillis 13y ago
Awesome, congrats guys. We have been using the BETA since the start and its been very good. If anyone from Stripe is reading, in your announcement you say: "In addition to keeping the best parts, we've also built multi-currency support: the ability for UK businesses to charge customers around the world in US dollars, British pounds, and Euro. We'll automatically handle all the conversions for you and deposit daily into your bank account." My understanding was that we would need a USD account in the UK in order to charge customers in USD. Have you now fixed that? I can't find anything in the docs? Or are you saying that we can just charge people GBP no matter where in the world they are?
- pc 13y ago
  > Have you now fixed that? We've fixed it :-)
  - samwillis 13y ago
    Awesome, thanks Patrick. How do we do it?
    - pc 13y ago
      Just specify a different currency in your charge and everything else will automatically do the right thing -- it should be a 3-char change. (We'll automatically convert charges to the currency of your bank account.)
    - samwillis 13y ago
      Thanks pc, cannot reply to your comment yet. In the docs https://stripe.com/docs/api#create_charge https://stripe.com/docs/api#create_charge there is no reffrence to exchange rates. Do you return a response that shows what the exchange rate was and so how much we will be paid in GBP after charging in USD? (paypal (yuck) do this)
      - amfeng 13y ago
        Hey, charge responses now return a reference to a balance transaction (which represents what you'll actually be paid in). You can auto expand the balance transaction upon charge creation by passing expand[]=balance_transaction, or you can retrieve the balance transaction directly: https://stripe.com/docs/api#retrieve_balance_transaction https://stripe.com/docs/api#retrieve_balance_transaction.
asb 13y ago
Am I right in thinking that Stripe has no option for a hosted payments page? This makes it much clearer to users that the site they are in does not process their credit card details correctly. I am aware of Stripe Checkout.
- nhangen 13y ago
  The beauty of stripe is that you CAN keep users on your site and process payments via a great API. Hosted payments would defeat the purpose.
  - asb 13y ago
    Yes I recognise having that option is an advantage, a major one for some cases (e.g. e-commerce). However I wouldn't be keen to put my credit card details in to a form on e.g. a blogger's website soliciting donations.
    - dabeeeenster 13y ago
      Actually this is a really interesting point...
    - sgdesign 13y ago
      You could use http://gumroad.com http://gumroad.com then.
    - hiddenfeatures 13y ago
      That may be true for you & me, but probably not relevant to the millions of PEBKAC internet users out there, who can't even tell IE from FF.
    - jusben1369 13y ago
      I think the problem is that Stripe is not a very well known brand yet (outside devs). So I can see your point where it's a global brand like PayPal or a well known bank/payment gateway in a country. But I'm not sure if you're nervous about putting your card details in that going to something called "Stripe" makes it seem much more trustworthy?
matzipan 13y ago
Welcome to europe. Been waiting for you for a long time guys.
julesie 13y ago
I'm a co-founder at Teddle, one of the companies mentioned in the press release. When we started Teddle the landscape for payments in the UK looked very very different. At one point PayPal looked like our best option. In reality their product would have killed our business (matching customers with independent house cleaners), with their punitive withholding of funds and lengthy clearing times. Then Andy and the guys at Stripe UK came along and blew the competition out of the water. They have been doing an outstanding job. The product is ridiculously good, the documentation is awesome and the customer service is human, friendly and reliable. Honestly I can't praise the product enough. Well done guys!
k-mcgrady 13y ago
Been using it in the beta for a couple of months. Surprised at how simple it was to get running.
jbrooksuk 13y ago
I've been using their beta for my startup, the API is amazing. I've only tested it with my own cards, but it's worked a treat (my SaaS isn't solid to be released yet). Love them!
noir_lord 13y ago
Damn. Between Stripe and gocardless we finally have a viable zero-friction way of taking payments. This is brilliant!.
hiddenfeatures 13y ago
Oh man... I love that Stripe is finally coming to Europe. BUT seriously (going on a disappointed rant here): Belgium & the Netherlands get into private beta and Germany gets nothing? I mean: Come on. BE + NL together have 27m people - Germany has some 80m AND a world-class economy. I don't want to bash on our neighbors (God knows we've done that one or two times in the past), I just want me some Stripe. I know that the delay is probably because of some ridiculous red tape in Germany. :-( tl;dr: Please absolve us from PayMill & the Samwer brother
- jusben1369 13y ago
  No idea but one thing Germany is famous for is the low adoption of credit cards vs direct debit (ELV) etc - more so than most European countries. German's tend to find it a deal breaker (locally) if you are a payment gateway that only supports credit cards. So that could be one reason why but just a guess.
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    AFAIK debit cards are supported but limited to Visa and Mastercard.
    - webignition 13y ago
      The UK beta allowed Visa and Mastercard credit and debit cards
    - hiddenfeatures 13y ago
      n.b. we were talking about DIRECT DEBIT (which is something else entirely from debit cards). You basically allow a company to directly withdraw money from your bank account (assuming sufficient funds on the account)
      - k-mcgrady 13y ago
        Sorry, misread that. Direct debit support would be nice!
Major_Grooves 13y ago
What is now the difference between using Stripe and Paymill? Any objective benefit to using either? asking this as an ex-Rocket guy with my own startup that needs payment integration soon. I've started the Paymill process but not sent the docs in yet.
- sdrinf 13y ago
  Having used both in production: - https://stripe.com/chat https://stripe.com/chat VS email -You usually don't need to "send the docs in" (being hungarian, they asked for my ID, but email was fine), which reduces time to launch -After having launched with Paymill, production started throwing strange errors. Root cause analysis revealed, that they don't have USD / EUR acceptance enabled by default; and they asked for extra paperwork to have that. This is not a good problem to have when users are hitting the payment wall.
  - germangirl 13y ago
    yeh but this problem can be easily solved. change the settings in your account, fill in the pdf & scan the form. sent overvia email - done. easy as that.
    - yadoga 13y ago
      In theory, yes. But in practice we've been struggling for a month now to have Paymill's support enable USD support for one of our customers. After two weeks of silence, they came up with some excuse that the forms had some info missing. After sending those in for a second and a third time we've been told that at that point it'd be only a matter of 24 hours to have their fulfilling bank green light the USD account. That was ten days ago and since then, our emails keep being unanswered. At this point I even doubt, Paymill offers any real USD support at all. Being the startup that they are, the support for us has been ridiculously bad.
- thijsc 13y ago
  Paymill kind of got the idea right, but the execution sucks. Stuff in the API has strange names and the docs and examples are often not completely correct. One thing we've hit is that there's a requirement to specify the first amount you're going to charge (which you might not know at that point) when you get a customer's CC data, that can be a real pain.
1bo1bo1 13y ago
Does anybody has used GoCardless or Braintree? What advantages there are between Stripe and those other ones?
- jusben1369 13y ago
  GoCardless is direct debit only so would be a natural compliment to Stripe but unlikely to be a head to head competitor.
- nqureshi 13y ago
  (I work at GoCardless). GoCardless and Stripe tend to solve very different problems. We're a Direct Debit provider, whereas Stripe do card payments. In short, Direct Debit is great for recurring payments and variable billing. It's traditionally really hard to get access to in the UK if you're a smaller business; but we allow people to sign up instantly and start using it without having to go to the bank. DD is a great solution if you're in a service business or are charging a similar set of people each month. It's a less good solution if you're doing e-commerce/physical goods, since you need fast payment timings/clearing. That's the sort of problem cards (and therefore Stripe) are optimized for. More info here: https://gocardless.com/direct-debit/use-cases/ https://gocardless.com/direct-debit/use-cases/
  - shedside 13y ago
    Also, according to Stripe's Terms and Conditions, “the Stripe Service is not made available to persons … for personal, family or household purposes” — this isn’t the case for GoCardless, where signing up as an individual to collect gift payments by Direct Debit is A-OK.
- lbarrow 13y ago
  I'm an engineer at Braintree. The way I see it when you compare Braintree and Stripe in the UK: - Stripe has instant signup. Braintree does not (yet). You have to send us a few documents; the signup process takes a few days. - Stripe multicurrency support is limited to USD, EUR, and GBP. Braintree can accept payments in 130 currencies and settle in the following currencies: AUD - Australian dollar CAD - Canadian dollar DKK - Danish krone CHF - Switzerland francs EUR - European Union euro GBP - British pound HKD - Hong Kong dollar JPY - Japanese yen NOK - Norwegian krone NZD - New Zealand dollar SEK - Swedish krona USD - US dollar ZAR - South African rand Being able to settle in DKK, CHF, NOK or SEK might make a big difference to merchants with large customer bases in Northern Europe. - Stripe charges a 2% currency conversion fee if you settle in a different currency than you present. Braintree does not. - The pricing structures are different. Stripe charges 2.4% + 20p per charge; Braintree charges on an interchange plus model: IC + 0.9% + 10p, with a 100 GBP monthly minimum. Finally, of course, our products are different as well. Braintree.js and Stripe.js don't work the same way, and our APIs have different capabilities.
deskpro 13y ago
We'd love to move to Stripe; the one issue is that you can't send us $USD to our UK based $USD account via a wire transfer (like Amex does for example). Instead, it seems the only option is for you to send us £GBP after charging another 2% on top. This is both expensive currency conversion; but we also spend $USD so have to pay to turn our £GBP back into $USD! Fix this, and we'd move in a heartbeat.
- collision 13y ago
  We don't support making our daily transfers via wires, but if you have a US-routable USD bank account we can transfer USD to that without conversion.
  - deskpro 13y ago
    Do you know of any UK bank that will provide a US-routable USD bank account?
    - tonylucas 13y ago
      Silicon Valley Bank (www.svb.com) might well do
    - tonyedgecombe 13y ago
      HSBC will but they will charge you for it.
      - deskpro 13y ago
        You don't happen to have a contact there do you? Can't find much online about it. So long I don't have to move other accounts that would work fine.
        tonyedgecombe 13y ago
        I don't but if ask in your branch I'm sure they will point you in the right direction.
krmmalik 13y ago
How do I get a job with this company? I hear nothing but great things about their product and the working culture there. I want to be a part of it. People from Stripe. If you're reading this, I'd like to work for you. Can we talk?
- collision 13y ago
  We'd love to hear from you. We're hiring in the US, UK and in a few other countries. https://stripe.com/jobs https://stripe.com/jobs & jobs@stripe.com
  - krmmalik 13y ago
    Sent you an email as soon as I typed my comment. Please look out for an email from "Khuram Malik". It should have landed in your inbox just now. Thank you for responding :)
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
lifeisstillgood 13y ago
Great. Now I have no excuses not to launch a side project
javindo 13y ago
Glad to hear they're finally coming over here! Somewhat unrelated but: https://stripe.com/jobs#eu_developer_evangelist https://stripe.com/jobs#eu_developer_evangelist This is my absolute dream job description, unfortunately as a CS undegrad I think I'd find myself somewhat under qualified for it.
- voltagex_ 13y ago
  Reach out anyway, you never know!
joshdotsmith 13y ago
Every time I got an email asking to join the beta, I asked the same question. I'm sure I'm getting annoying, but I'll ask again: When can US customers start charging UK customers?
- collision 13y ago
  You can already charge UK customers, but I presume you mean UK customers in GBP. This is on our roadmap to add. (Most of the heavy lifting is already done for the reverse in the UK.)
jdg1 13y ago
I would love to use this but the pricing is a bit of a problem. The Visa credit price per transaction is only a little bit higher but almost half our transactions are Visa debit which are charged by our existing provider at a flat rate of 34p + 10p for the gateway. The Stripe cost for a £60 transaction would be £1.64. The pricing needs to take into account the higher rate of debit card usage in the UK.
workhere-io 13y ago
Will companies located in other EU countries than the UK be able to use this?
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  It's available in a few other EU countries in beta: Belgium, France, Ireland, The Netherlands. Details here: https://stripe.com/global https://stripe.com/global
alan_cx 13y ago
Forgive my ignorance, but is this the PayPal replacement/alternative I have been waiting years for? If so, I may experience the rare emotion of "happiness".
- krmmalik 13y ago
  Yes. This is it.
- kintamanimatt 13y ago
  It's a very good alternative and I'm very that more of the best-of-breed payment providers are expanding outside the US/Canada. There's also the German Stripe clone, Paymill. Also, not every country is heavy on credit/debit cards (think, Poland, Japan, etc) and Adyen is able to support all kinds of local payment methods.
woodylondon 13y ago
Just signed up. How crazy easy that was, no sending in a ton of information of waiting. Live account in 2mins. In fact it's cheaper than PayPal Pro! Paypal, Worldpay you are doomed!
davidjgraph 13y ago
If you mostly export (i.e sell abroad), there are some additional considerations for picking a payment provider (I speak from the point of view of a UK company). We've been using Shareit for selling software for many, many years and it's basically 4.9% as fees. The first interesting part for me is the currency conversion rate. We operate in GBP and all of our sales last month were in USD. Working out the average rate we got 1.54 USD to 1 GBP. Looking at the exchange rates for July [0] that seems reasonably close to the mid market rate. I'd be interested to know how Stripe determine their conversion rates. If it's mid-market then we're looking at 4.4% against 4.9%. The next issue when exporting is whether you have to register formally in the country you're selling to in order to avoid withholding taxes [1] The countries we've come up against this to date are the USA, Portugal and India. The volume we do with the US justifies registering with the IRS and making a W8-BEN form available to all companies we sell to. The process for the US is doable and the volume we sell there easily justifies it. The process for Portugal is awful and the process for India comprises about 6-8 weeks of utter bureaucratic bullshit [2]. The sales volume from these countries were not worth going through the process. If we didn't go through this process and sell directly in these countries the buyer would have to withhold a proportion of the purchase, usually around 20%. Shareit is an actual reseller, legally. Stripe isn't, AFAIK. So, Shareit can deal with the admin in these countries and pass over the same amount they do as for any country. A few years ago, we hadn't heard of withholding taxes, it's becoming more and more common as countries try to clamp down on tax evasion. It's more strictly enforced the larger the payment amount gets, but my point is to be aware of the legal differences in payment processing services regarding foreign withholding tax rules. Edit : There's actually a third issue as well and that's whether your insurance covers you to take card information on your site (up to details regarding the type of SSL certificate you have installed) and, if it does, whether you comply with all the security constraints the policy imposes. You may find that the additional premium is more than the cost savings. [0] http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=USD&view=1Y http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=USD&view=1Y [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withholding_tax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withholding_tax [2] http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dallaway/pan-card-uk-company.html http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dallaway/pan-card-uk-company.ht...
- lifeisstillgood 13y ago
k-mcgrady 13y ago
One 'feature' that would make a big difference in the UK is better debit card support - specifically for Maestro.
- pc 13y ago
  We decided against supporting them since Maestro cards are falling out of use. (See my other comment in the thread.)
  - k-mcgrady 13y ago
    Ah, I'm in Northern Ireland. One of our main banks (Danske) issues Maestro as the only debit card option making it one of the most used cards here. Are there any plans to add support of has it been completely ruled out? Edit: Did a bit of research and it looks like Danske is finally offering Visa Debit as an option.
duiker101 13y ago
It's happening!!!
dodgrile 13y ago
Adding to the people happy about this - we've been using the beta for a while, took us a couple of hours to integrate it. Really nice to work with with.
knes 13y ago
Once they rollout the marketplace feature to UK users, this will truly be the best piece of service around. GG to the stripe Team
mrweasel 13y ago
Could someone people explain the appeal of Stripe? The APIs are nice, but so a most other payment providers. The fee Stripe charges are pretty high. We would never agree to a percentage of the sale, only a fixed price. The fact that you can't change who process you credit card payments (can you?) excludes you from getting any good deals on fees. If you shop around you can save a lot of money. Honestly getting a merchant account, if that's the excuse for using Stripe, isn't that hard.
- someone13 13y ago
  Actually, AFAIK, Stripe will export your card data to any other provider, if you ask them to.
  - mrweasel 13y ago
    Do you know if you get better rates that the 2.4 / 2.5% Stripe charges, if you choose a different provider? You could use a company like PayEx, NetAxept, DIBS or ePay ( there are many more of cause ). You pay them a flat fee per transaction, I know at least one of them will do it for a fixed monthly fee and $0.04 per transaction. The you need someone to handle the actual merchant account, someone like Teller, SwedBank, Handelsbank ( again there are many more ). Many of these will process VISA and MasterCard for less than 1% of the amount and in some case a lot less. Stripe is wonderfully simple, but if you want to process any real amount of credit cards they seem really expensive. For quickly starting up I get why you would go with Stripe.
    - ebroder 13y ago
      If you're getting cheaper offers from other providers, you should get in touch with us (support@stripe.com). We can do volume discounts, but we can also just help you compare prices - many other providers have cheaper sticker prices, but because they frequently have other fees, we'll often come out cheaper than you think.
      - mrweasel 13y ago
AhtiK 13y ago
Interesting that Braintree went to the whole EU at once while Stripe seems to take it country by country. Not sure if it's related but at around that time Braintree changed the pricing to add Interchange fee that depends on the card used, service offered etc. Making the final pricing somewhat confusing but maybe more affordable as a result. Does anyone know if Stripe account setup&approval for UK is just as straightforward as for US? With Braintree they ask for financial (turnover & EBIT) and shareholder information when applying as an EU company, no idea if it's also the case for US companies.
- pc 13y ago
  > Does anyone know if Stripe account setup&approval for UK is just as straightforward as for US? Yep; it's the very same instant setup.
- sleepyhead 13y ago
  One thing to note with Braintree though is that they rolled out in the EU with a flat pricing, but a few months later changed it to having a minimum 100EUR in transaction fees. That is a very big change and it becomes not a good alternative for a small company to start with. Stripe has higher fees but no fixed fees.
justplay 13y ago
To Stripe team, You are doing great and fast. Keep going.
bowlofpetunias 13y ago
Why is Stripe so interesting? As far as I can tell, they still only offer one payment method, credit cards. That makes them quite uncompetitive in most countries where credit cards are just one of the many online payment methods, and completely useless in countries where most only payment has already shifted to direct transfers without the cost and hassle of going through credit card companies. The movement is now towards harmonizing direct payments and mobile payment. Using credit cards for online payment feels so yesterday to me.
- ux-app 13y ago
  could you expand on this please? I'm from Australia and for us, payment online means credit card pretty much 100% of the time. "harmonizing direct payments and mobile payment" -- I assume direct payments are direct debit from savings account? What is a "mobile payment". How are these direct debit payments made? Do you know of any payment processors that process this type of payment? I'm keen to hear how other parts of the world handle payments. Thanks.
  - ottbot 13y ago
    Take a look at what http://gocardless.com http://gocardless.com are doing with Direct Debit in the UK. Not sure what "mobile payment" really means, outside of in-app purchases?
lamby 13y ago
Thanks for the cupcakes.
buddhika 13y ago
Not to spam the thread but if any UK merchant is looking for an invoicing product supporting Stripe, check CurdBee here - http://vesess.com/survey-results-and-stripe-uk/ http://vesess.com/survey-results-and-stripe-uk/

371 points by woodrow 13y ago

Really excited about this because Stripe is the most popular gateway for our WordPress plugin and this opens new doors for many of our customers in the UK that don't wan't to use Paypal. Would love to see them continue spreading East.

markokrajnc 13y ago

This is great! I have been waiting for this for a loooooong time! I hope they will come also to other European countries soon. But at least in UK! This is great!

thibaut_barrere 13y ago
They are already available in France (and apparently Ireland too): https://support.stripe.com/questions/what-countries-does-stripe-support https://support.stripe.com/questions/what-countries-does-str...
- pc 13y ago
  We're in private beta in France and Ireland. (I work at Stripe.) We try to make sure that things are very comprehensively tested before we allow public signups.
  - Concours 13y ago
    Can't wait to see you come to Germany, any plans for the beta yet ?
    - collision 13y ago
      We're working on it.
      - workhere-io 13y ago
        How about Scandinavia - are those countries in the pipeline?
        thairu 13y ago
        Yup. We are working on bringing Stripe to Scandinavia. Please sign up to be notified when we launch at https://stripe.com/global https://stripe.com/global
  - conradfr 13y ago
    Great news, although I work now for a somewhat competitor. Anyway I do more and more api for my personal projects (thanks to AngularJS and mobile) and the Stripe api & docs have been my main inspirations and technical references.
toretore 13y ago
I'd really be interested in knowing why it's not "Stripe EU" instead. What sort of problems they had trying to do that, and what needs improvement for that to become reality.
- pc 13y ago
  Mostly because there's a bunch of subtlety around bank transfers and identity verification. The EU simplifies a lot of the regulatory framework but the actual operations still entail a decent amount of heterogeneity from country-to-country.
  - toretore 13y ago
    So it's because of technical/operational and not regulatory or legal problems? What about SEPA, or is that just for "regular people"?
- markokrajnc 13y ago
  I don't know for sure, but I guess the credit ratings are not available in all EU countries. ("Paperwork" is different in every EU country.)

helipad 13y ago

This is good news, and hopefully websites will vote with their feet. Stripe may work out more expensive than PayPal, but that extra cost is probably offset by the amount spent on heart medication.

rs 13y ago
Stripe has flat pricing: https://stripe.com/gb/help/pricing https://stripe.com/gb/help/pricing Paypal has tiered pricing: https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-receiving-fees-outside https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_display-receiv... So, it depends on which tier you're on for PayPal, it may go either way. However, I suspect most people are sitting on 3.4%+20p on PayPal will find Stripe cheaper.
madaxe 13y ago
Never mind PayPal, they're more expensive than the commodity players in the UK, like SagePay. Stripe's strategy is all about developer-led adoption, and their approach to their tech belies this. Unfortunately, in reality, developers have as much say as to which PSP their client uses as the cabin boy does what course the captain should sail. I run an eCommerce firm - we've mooted stripe to all of our customers, as we like the look of their approach - but none will adopt, purely on the basis of cost.
- pc 13y ago
  For what it's worth, a lot of our bigger users (from MoMA to Walmart) ended up using Stripe because their developers successfully pushed it internally. Could you drop me a line? patrick@stripe.com. I have an idea I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on.
  - madaxe 13y ago
    Sure, done.
- nandemo 13y ago
  If you're doing typical e-commerce -- as opposed to, say, SaaS -- the cost of payment processing seems especially important, since it might eat into your (typically low) margins. Why would you recommend Stripe over an established, cheaper processor?

aculver 13y ago

For any Ruby on Rails developers in the UK who may now be jumping into Stripe for the first time because of this, Pete Keen has just released (or is releasing today) a new book called Mastering Modern Payments (http://www.petekeen.net/mastering-modern-payments http://www.petekeen.net/mastering-modern-payments) which focus on Stripe and Rails.

smickie 13y ago
I've been using the UK beta for a few months. Honestly, the API docs and Gem are so good you don't need a book. From sitting down can looking over the docs to charging my debit card for a monthly subscription took about an hour (and I'm not even that good with ruby, if you're a pro you could do it in half an hour I reckon).
- aculver 13y ago
  I totally agree that Stripe is easy to get started with and I believe their documentation is the best in the industry. But, as someone who processes payments in the six figures annually with Stripe, I feel there is definitely still room for a book like Pete's, in the same way that there was a place for a book about design patterns even among talented and experienced developers. His book builds on the platform, rather than replacing the documentation. I manage a drop-in Rails engine for adding Stripe subscriptions to an app (http://github.com/andrewculver/koudoku http://github.com/andrewculver/koudoku) and the number one piece of feedback I get is that people wish they had heard of it before they integrated Stripe subscriptions in their app. This tells me that there is room for gems like mine and books like Pete's in the little ecosystem Stripe has created.
  - rhuppert 13y ago
    I'm happy to say that I will not be a member of this "before" group. Thanks for pointing it out today. I look forward to using your gem and buying Pete's book.
- agduncan 13y ago
  I was of the understanding that UK debit cards are not currently supported. Has this recently changed?

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

samwillis 13y ago

Awesome, congrats guys. We have been using the BETA since the start and its been very good. If anyone from Stripe is reading, in your announcement you say: "In addition to keeping the best parts, we've also built multi-currency support: the ability for UK businesses to charge customers around the world in US dollars, British pounds, and Euro. We'll automatically handle all the conversions for you and deposit daily into your bank account." My understanding was that we would need a USD account in the UK in order to charge customers in USD. Have you now fixed that? I can't find anything in the docs? Or are you saying that we can just charge people GBP no matter where in the world they are?

pc 13y ago
> Have you now fixed that? We've fixed it :-)
- samwillis 13y ago
  Awesome, thanks Patrick. How do we do it?
  - pc 13y ago
    Just specify a different currency in your charge and everything else will automatically do the right thing -- it should be a 3-char change. (We'll automatically convert charges to the currency of your bank account.)
  - samwillis 13y ago
    Thanks pc, cannot reply to your comment yet. In the docs https://stripe.com/docs/api#create_charge https://stripe.com/docs/api#create_charge there is no reffrence to exchange rates. Do you return a response that shows what the exchange rate was and so how much we will be paid in GBP after charging in USD? (paypal (yuck) do this)
    - amfeng 13y ago
      Hey, charge responses now return a reference to a balance transaction (which represents what you'll actually be paid in). You can auto expand the balance transaction upon charge creation by passing expand[]=balance_transaction, or you can retrieve the balance transaction directly: https://stripe.com/docs/api#retrieve_balance_transaction https://stripe.com/docs/api#retrieve_balance_transaction.

asb 13y ago

Am I right in thinking that Stripe has no option for a hosted payments page? This makes it much clearer to users that the site they are in does not process their credit card details correctly. I am aware of Stripe Checkout.

nhangen 13y ago
The beauty of stripe is that you CAN keep users on your site and process payments via a great API. Hosted payments would defeat the purpose.
- asb 13y ago
  Yes I recognise having that option is an advantage, a major one for some cases (e.g. e-commerce). However I wouldn't be keen to put my credit card details in to a form on e.g. a blogger's website soliciting donations.
  - dabeeeenster 13y ago
    Actually this is a really interesting point...
  - sgdesign 13y ago
    You could use http://gumroad.com http://gumroad.com then.
  - hiddenfeatures 13y ago
    That may be true for you & me, but probably not relevant to the millions of PEBKAC internet users out there, who can't even tell IE from FF.
  - jusben1369 13y ago
    I think the problem is that Stripe is not a very well known brand yet (outside devs). So I can see your point where it's a global brand like PayPal or a well known bank/payment gateway in a country. But I'm not sure if you're nervous about putting your card details in that going to something called "Stripe" makes it seem much more trustworthy?

matzipan 13y ago

Welcome to europe. Been waiting for you for a long time guys.

julesie 13y ago

I'm a co-founder at Teddle, one of the companies mentioned in the press release. When we started Teddle the landscape for payments in the UK looked very very different. At one point PayPal looked like our best option. In reality their product would have killed our business (matching customers with independent house cleaners), with their punitive withholding of funds and lengthy clearing times. Then Andy and the guys at Stripe UK came along and blew the competition out of the water. They have been doing an outstanding job. The product is ridiculously good, the documentation is awesome and the customer service is human, friendly and reliable. Honestly I can't praise the product enough. Well done guys!

k-mcgrady 13y ago

Been using it in the beta for a couple of months. Surprised at how simple it was to get running.

jbrooksuk 13y ago

I've been using their beta for my startup, the API is amazing. I've only tested it with my own cards, but it's worked a treat (my SaaS isn't solid to be released yet). Love them!

noir_lord 13y ago

Damn. Between Stripe and gocardless we finally have a viable zero-friction way of taking payments. This is brilliant!.

hiddenfeatures 13y ago

Oh man... I love that Stripe is finally coming to Europe. BUT seriously (going on a disappointed rant here): Belgium & the Netherlands get into private beta and Germany gets nothing? I mean: Come on. BE + NL together have 27m people - Germany has some 80m AND a world-class economy. I don't want to bash on our neighbors (God knows we've done that one or two times in the past), I just want me some Stripe. I know that the delay is probably because of some ridiculous red tape in Germany. :-( tl;dr: Please absolve us from PayMill & the Samwer brother

jusben1369 13y ago
No idea but one thing Germany is famous for is the low adoption of credit cards vs direct debit (ELV) etc - more so than most European countries. German's tend to find it a deal breaker (locally) if you are a payment gateway that only supports credit cards. So that could be one reason why but just a guess.
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  AFAIK debit cards are supported but limited to Visa and Mastercard.
  - webignition 13y ago
    The UK beta allowed Visa and Mastercard credit and debit cards
  - hiddenfeatures 13y ago
    n.b. we were talking about DIRECT DEBIT (which is something else entirely from debit cards). You basically allow a company to directly withdraw money from your bank account (assuming sufficient funds on the account)
    - k-mcgrady 13y ago
      Sorry, misread that. Direct debit support would be nice!

Major_Grooves 13y ago

What is now the difference between using Stripe and Paymill? Any objective benefit to using either? asking this as an ex-Rocket guy with my own startup that needs payment integration soon. I've started the Paymill process but not sent the docs in yet.

sdrinf 13y ago
Having used both in production: - https://stripe.com/chat https://stripe.com/chat VS email -You usually don't need to "send the docs in" (being hungarian, they asked for my ID, but email was fine), which reduces time to launch -After having launched with Paymill, production started throwing strange errors. Root cause analysis revealed, that they don't have USD / EUR acceptance enabled by default; and they asked for extra paperwork to have that. This is not a good problem to have when users are hitting the payment wall.
- germangirl 13y ago
  yeh but this problem can be easily solved. change the settings in your account, fill in the pdf & scan the form. sent overvia email - done. easy as that.
  - yadoga 13y ago
    In theory, yes. But in practice we've been struggling for a month now to have Paymill's support enable USD support for one of our customers. After two weeks of silence, they came up with some excuse that the forms had some info missing. After sending those in for a second and a third time we've been told that at that point it'd be only a matter of 24 hours to have their fulfilling bank green light the USD account. That was ten days ago and since then, our emails keep being unanswered. At this point I even doubt, Paymill offers any real USD support at all. Being the startup that they are, the support for us has been ridiculously bad.
thijsc 13y ago
Paymill kind of got the idea right, but the execution sucks. Stuff in the API has strange names and the docs and examples are often not completely correct. One thing we've hit is that there's a requirement to specify the first amount you're going to charge (which you might not know at that point) when you get a customer's CC data, that can be a real pain.

1bo1bo1 13y ago

Does anybody has used GoCardless or Braintree? What advantages there are between Stripe and those other ones?

jusben1369 13y ago
GoCardless is direct debit only so would be a natural compliment to Stripe but unlikely to be a head to head competitor.
nqureshi 13y ago
(I work at GoCardless). GoCardless and Stripe tend to solve very different problems. We're a Direct Debit provider, whereas Stripe do card payments. In short, Direct Debit is great for recurring payments and variable billing. It's traditionally really hard to get access to in the UK if you're a smaller business; but we allow people to sign up instantly and start using it without having to go to the bank. DD is a great solution if you're in a service business or are charging a similar set of people each month. It's a less good solution if you're doing e-commerce/physical goods, since you need fast payment timings/clearing. That's the sort of problem cards (and therefore Stripe) are optimized for. More info here: https://gocardless.com/direct-debit/use-cases/ https://gocardless.com/direct-debit/use-cases/
- shedside 13y ago
  Also, according to Stripe's Terms and Conditions, “the Stripe Service is not made available to persons … for personal, family or household purposes” — this isn’t the case for GoCardless, where signing up as an individual to collect gift payments by Direct Debit is A-OK.
lbarrow 13y ago
I'm an engineer at Braintree. The way I see it when you compare Braintree and Stripe in the UK: - Stripe has instant signup. Braintree does not (yet). You have to send us a few documents; the signup process takes a few days. - Stripe multicurrency support is limited to USD, EUR, and GBP. Braintree can accept payments in 130 currencies and settle in the following currencies: AUD - Australian dollar CAD - Canadian dollar DKK - Danish krone CHF - Switzerland francs EUR - European Union euro GBP - British pound HKD - Hong Kong dollar JPY - Japanese yen NOK - Norwegian krone NZD - New Zealand dollar SEK - Swedish krona USD - US dollar ZAR - South African rand Being able to settle in DKK, CHF, NOK or SEK might make a big difference to merchants with large customer bases in Northern Europe. - Stripe charges a 2% currency conversion fee if you settle in a different currency than you present. Braintree does not. - The pricing structures are different. Stripe charges 2.4% + 20p per charge; Braintree charges on an interchange plus model: IC + 0.9% + 10p, with a 100 GBP monthly minimum. Finally, of course, our products are different as well. Braintree.js and Stripe.js don't work the same way, and our APIs have different capabilities.

deskpro 13y ago

We'd love to move to Stripe; the one issue is that you can't send us $USD to our UK based $USD account via a wire transfer (like Amex does for example). Instead, it seems the only option is for you to send us £GBP after charging another 2% on top. This is both expensive currency conversion; but we also spend $USD so have to pay to turn our £GBP back into $USD! Fix this, and we'd move in a heartbeat.

collision 13y ago
We don't support making our daily transfers via wires, but if you have a US-routable USD bank account we can transfer USD to that without conversion.
- deskpro 13y ago
  Do you know of any UK bank that will provide a US-routable USD bank account?
  - tonylucas 13y ago
    Silicon Valley Bank (www.svb.com) might well do
  - tonyedgecombe 13y ago
    HSBC will but they will charge you for it.
    - deskpro 13y ago
      You don't happen to have a contact there do you? Can't find much online about it. So long I don't have to move other accounts that would work fine.
      - tonyedgecombe 13y ago
        I don't but if ask in your branch I'm sure they will point you in the right direction.

krmmalik 13y ago

How do I get a job with this company? I hear nothing but great things about their product and the working culture there. I want to be a part of it. People from Stripe. If you're reading this, I'd like to work for you. Can we talk?

collision 13y ago
We'd love to hear from you. We're hiring in the US, UK and in a few other countries. https://stripe.com/jobs https://stripe.com/jobs & jobs@stripe.com
- krmmalik 13y ago
  Sent you an email as soon as I typed my comment. Please look out for an email from "Khuram Malik". It should have landed in your inbox just now. Thank you for responding :)
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

Great. Now I have no excuses not to launch a side project

javindo 13y ago

Glad to hear they're finally coming over here! Somewhat unrelated but: https://stripe.com/jobs#eu_developer_evangelist https://stripe.com/jobs#eu_developer_evangelist This is my absolute dream job description, unfortunately as a CS undegrad I think I'd find myself somewhat under qualified for it.

voltagex_ 13y ago
Reach out anyway, you never know!

joshdotsmith 13y ago

Every time I got an email asking to join the beta, I asked the same question. I'm sure I'm getting annoying, but I'll ask again: When can US customers start charging UK customers?

collision 13y ago
You can already charge UK customers, but I presume you mean UK customers in GBP. This is on our roadmap to add. (Most of the heavy lifting is already done for the reverse in the UK.)

jdg1 13y ago

I would love to use this but the pricing is a bit of a problem. The Visa credit price per transaction is only a little bit higher but almost half our transactions are Visa debit which are charged by our existing provider at a flat rate of 34p + 10p for the gateway. The Stripe cost for a £60 transaction would be £1.64. The pricing needs to take into account the higher rate of debit card usage in the UK.

workhere-io 13y ago

Will companies located in other EU countries than the UK be able to use this?

k-mcgrady 13y ago
It's available in a few other EU countries in beta: Belgium, France, Ireland, The Netherlands. Details here: https://stripe.com/global https://stripe.com/global

alan_cx 13y ago

Forgive my ignorance, but is this the PayPal replacement/alternative I have been waiting years for? If so, I may experience the rare emotion of "happiness".

krmmalik 13y ago
Yes. This is it.
kintamanimatt 13y ago
It's a very good alternative and I'm very that more of the best-of-breed payment providers are expanding outside the US/Canada. There's also the German Stripe clone, Paymill. Also, not every country is heavy on credit/debit cards (think, Poland, Japan, etc) and Adyen is able to support all kinds of local payment methods.

woodylondon 13y ago

Just signed up. How crazy easy that was, no sending in a ton of information of waiting. Live account in 2mins. In fact it's cheaper than PayPal Pro! Paypal, Worldpay you are doomed!

davidjgraph 13y ago

If you mostly export (i.e sell abroad), there are some additional considerations for picking a payment provider (I speak from the point of view of a UK company). We've been using Shareit for selling software for many, many years and it's basically 4.9% as fees. The first interesting part for me is the currency conversion rate. We operate in GBP and all of our sales last month were in USD. Working out the average rate we got 1.54 USD to 1 GBP. Looking at the exchange rates for July [0] that seems reasonably close to the mid market rate. I'd be interested to know how Stripe determine their conversion rates. If it's mid-market then we're looking at 4.4% against 4.9%. The next issue when exporting is whether you have to register formally in the country you're selling to in order to avoid withholding taxes [1] The countries we've come up against this to date are the USA, Portugal and India. The volume we do with the US justifies registering with the IRS and making a W8-BEN form available to all companies we sell to. The process for the US is doable and the volume we sell there easily justifies it. The process for Portugal is awful and the process for India comprises about 6-8 weeks of utter bureaucratic bullshit [2]. The sales volume from these countries were not worth going through the process. If we didn't go through this process and sell directly in these countries the buyer would have to withhold a proportion of the purchase, usually around 20%. Shareit is an actual reseller, legally. Stripe isn't, AFAIK. So, Shareit can deal with the admin in these countries and pass over the same amount they do as for any country. A few years ago, we hadn't heard of withholding taxes, it's becoming more and more common as countries try to clamp down on tax evasion. It's more strictly enforced the larger the payment amount gets, but my point is to be aware of the legal differences in payment processing services regarding foreign withholding tax rules. Edit : There's actually a third issue as well and that's whether your insurance covers you to take card information on your site (up to details regarding the type of SSL certificate you have installed) and, if it does, whether you comply with all the security constraints the policy imposes. You may find that the additional premium is more than the cost savings. [0] http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=USD&view=1Y http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=GBP&to=USD&view=1Y [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withholding_tax http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withholding_tax [2] http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dallaway/pan-card-uk-company.html http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dallaway/pan-card-uk-company.ht...

lifeisstillgood 13y ago

k-mcgrady 13y ago

One 'feature' that would make a big difference in the UK is better debit card support - specifically for Maestro.

pc 13y ago
We decided against supporting them since Maestro cards are falling out of use. (See my other comment in the thread.)
- k-mcgrady 13y ago
  Ah, I'm in Northern Ireland. One of our main banks (Danske) issues Maestro as the only debit card option making it one of the most used cards here. Are there any plans to add support of has it been completely ruled out? Edit: Did a bit of research and it looks like Danske is finally offering Visa Debit as an option.

duiker101 13y ago

It's happening!!!

dodgrile 13y ago

Adding to the people happy about this - we've been using the beta for a while, took us a couple of hours to integrate it. Really nice to work with with.

knes 13y ago

Once they rollout the marketplace feature to UK users, this will truly be the best piece of service around. GG to the stripe Team

mrweasel 13y ago

Could someone people explain the appeal of Stripe? The APIs are nice, but so a most other payment providers. The fee Stripe charges are pretty high. We would never agree to a percentage of the sale, only a fixed price. The fact that you can't change who process you credit card payments (can you?) excludes you from getting any good deals on fees. If you shop around you can save a lot of money. Honestly getting a merchant account, if that's the excuse for using Stripe, isn't that hard.

someone13 13y ago
Actually, AFAIK, Stripe will export your card data to any other provider, if you ask them to.
- mrweasel 13y ago
  Do you know if you get better rates that the 2.4 / 2.5% Stripe charges, if you choose a different provider? You could use a company like PayEx, NetAxept, DIBS or ePay ( there are many more of cause ). You pay them a flat fee per transaction, I know at least one of them will do it for a fixed monthly fee and $0.04 per transaction. The you need someone to handle the actual merchant account, someone like Teller, SwedBank, Handelsbank ( again there are many more ). Many of these will process VISA and MasterCard for less than 1% of the amount and in some case a lot less. Stripe is wonderfully simple, but if you want to process any real amount of credit cards they seem really expensive. For quickly starting up I get why you would go with Stripe.
  - ebroder 13y ago
    If you're getting cheaper offers from other providers, you should get in touch with us (support@stripe.com). We can do volume discounts, but we can also just help you compare prices - many other providers have cheaper sticker prices, but because they frequently have other fees, we'll often come out cheaper than you think.
    - mrweasel 13y ago

AhtiK 13y ago

Interesting that Braintree went to the whole EU at once while Stripe seems to take it country by country. Not sure if it's related but at around that time Braintree changed the pricing to add Interchange fee that depends on the card used, service offered etc. Making the final pricing somewhat confusing but maybe more affordable as a result. Does anyone know if Stripe account setup&approval for UK is just as straightforward as for US? With Braintree they ask for financial (turnover & EBIT) and shareholder information when applying as an EU company, no idea if it's also the case for US companies.

pc 13y ago
> Does anyone know if Stripe account setup&approval for UK is just as straightforward as for US? Yep; it's the very same instant setup.
sleepyhead 13y ago
One thing to note with Braintree though is that they rolled out in the EU with a flat pricing, but a few months later changed it to having a minimum 100EUR in transaction fees. That is a very big change and it becomes not a good alternative for a small company to start with. Stripe has higher fees but no fixed fees.

justplay 13y ago

To Stripe team, You are doing great and fast. Keep going.

bowlofpetunias 13y ago

Why is Stripe so interesting? As far as I can tell, they still only offer one payment method, credit cards. That makes them quite uncompetitive in most countries where credit cards are just one of the many online payment methods, and completely useless in countries where most only payment has already shifted to direct transfers without the cost and hassle of going through credit card companies. The movement is now towards harmonizing direct payments and mobile payment. Using credit cards for online payment feels so yesterday to me.

ux-app 13y ago
could you expand on this please? I'm from Australia and for us, payment online means credit card pretty much 100% of the time. "harmonizing direct payments and mobile payment" -- I assume direct payments are direct debit from savings account? What is a "mobile payment". How are these direct debit payments made? Do you know of any payment processors that process this type of payment? I'm keen to hear how other parts of the world handle payments. Thanks.
- ottbot 13y ago
  Take a look at what http://gocardless.com http://gocardless.com are doing with Direct Debit in the UK. Not sure what "mobile payment" really means, outside of in-app purchases?

lamby 13y ago

Thanks for the cupcakes.

buddhika 13y ago

Not to spam the thread but if any UK merchant is looking for an invoicing product supporting Stripe, check CurdBee here - http://vesess.com/survey-results-and-stripe-uk/ http://vesess.com/survey-results-and-stripe-uk/