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I'm not sure I understand Stripe's value proposition here. What is the benefit of using Stripe's library over using ApplePay (PassKit) directly? (Honest quest

I'm not sure I understand Stripe's value proposition here. What is the benefit of using Stripe's library over using ApplePay (PassKit) directly? (Honest question)

rewind 12y ago
If you're using Stripe as your payment processor and using Apple Pay through Stripe (just like choosing a different credit card), then you're still only using one payment processor. All your transfers, transaction data, accounting, etc. is just done through Stripe. You don't care that the customer actually used Apple Pay.
zaidf 12y ago
Apple does not provide the merchant account. Apple Pay serves as the middle party between the merchant account provider(Stripe) and the user with Pay's role being to maintain cards on file and relay it securely to the merchant account providers.
fgblanch 12y ago
I guess the Stripe's value proposition for developers is that they don't have to maintain or support several payment platforms. Just one, Stripe and there they integrate all of them ( Credit Cards, Apple Pay, etc.)
pc 12y ago
You can't use Apple Pay directly: you have to use it with a supported payment platform. (List is at https://developer.apple.com/apple-pay/. https://developer.apple.com/apple-pay/.)
- diziet 12y ago
  Three of the payment platforms either don't load or show a 'Coming Soon' page. Ouch.
  - aapl_bad_stream 12y ago
    If only Apple Pay, had, paid for some good engineers, then their keynote stream may have worked!
- nextstep 12y ago
  Thanks. Makes sense.
- induscreep 12y ago
  You actually can: "The alternative is to provide your own server-side solution to receive payments from your app, decrypt payment tokens and interface with the payment provider. Handling credit and debit card payments can be complicated and unless you already have the expertise and systems in place, an SDK from a payment provider is the quickest and most reliable way to support Apple Pay in your app." From: https://developer.apple.com/apple-pay/Getting-Started-with-Apple-Pay.pdf https://developer.apple.com/apple-pay/Getting-Started-with-A...
  - jonknee 12y ago
    ... That's not directly. The "interface with the payment provider" is what Stripe is and this lets you interface with Stripe.
    - induscreep 12y ago
      What is the barrier in building your own interface with the payment provider? Is it red tape, or technical challenges?
      - danudey 12y ago
        Both. You have to build a pretty significant architecture which meets PCI compliance (so e.g. hardware firewalls, hosted in a data centre with sufficient physical security, etc. etc), which makes it hugely expensive, and technologically demanding. Then you have to sign a contract with a bank or banks in order to get the process going, which is the red tape part. Then you get to handle all the systems responsible for handling fraud, chargebacks, extra customer service, and so on. And then you pay higher rates because you're doing worthless volumes, even assuming that the banks will deal with you at those volumes. Once you're done that, you've built a small-scale, inefficient, featureless, and altogether shitty version of what Stripe will offer up to anyone with an e-mail address, and it's taken you six to eight months to build. Oh and your app is out of date and all your competitors have taken your customers.
        12y ago
- awicklander 12y ago
  So is Apple Pay in essence another way to get a credit card processed against stripe? If you have an app that customers can store credit cards on, it's not clear to me what the additional benefit of apple pay is? Is it simply a better/faster way of getting the card information to stripe by way of thumb press as opposed to key entered?
  - jonknee 12y ago
    I suppose the idea would be that you want to lower the barriers to payment and a thumb press is pretty low.
    - scholia 12y ago
      In Europe, we can already pay for things with contactless bank cards, without even tapping (up to about $30). If you want to do it like NFC or iPay, you can always stick your payment card to the back of your phone.... UKCards Association says "44.6 million contactless cards in circulation in the UK, used to make 22.1 million contactless transactions in May 2014". http://www.theukcardsassociation.org.uk/contactless_consumer/what_is_contactless.asp http://www.theukcardsassociation.org.uk/contactless_consumer...
      - madeofpalk 12y ago
        You joke about sticking your card to your phone but that's what my bank did https://www.commbank.com.au/blog/tap-pay-new-commbank-app-ios-7.html https://www.commbank.com.au/blog/tap-pay-new-commbank-app-io...
        batuhanicoz 12y ago
        We have NFC sim cards in Turkey that enables regular phones (even dumb ones) to make purchases. (http://www.garanti.com.tr/en/personal_banking/credit_cards/bonus_card_family/bonus_trink/bonus_trink_on_mobile_phone.page? http://www.garanti.com.tr/en/personal_banking/credit_cards/b...) There are also NFC enabled stickers, watches and key fobs.
Igglyboo 12y ago
Apple Pay doesn't actually deal with banks or credit card processors. It's just the frontend for the actual physical payment(card swipe or nfc).
- induscreep 12y ago
  Then why does Apple Pay have to be "compatible" with visa/MC/Amex? I don't think it just stores a digital version of the credit card...
  - jonknee 12y ago
    The card issuers need to sign off on it for the liability purposes.
    - Letio 12y ago
      Apple needs the networks and/or the banks to tokenize the CC numbers at the time the card is imported into the wallet. When the payment is processed, that same network/bank takes the token provided, translates it back to a card number and passes the card number to the issuing bank. I think it's actually quite a feat that Apple managed to tokenize all 800 million existing card numbers, because of this requirement.
      - porsupah 12y ago
        And, apparently, at "card present" transaction rates, which I imagine took some degree of negotiation on Apple's part. http://bankinnovation.net/2014/09/apple-said-to-negotiate-deep-payments-discounts-from-big-banks/ http://bankinnovation.net/2014/09/apple-said-to-negotiate-de...
  - zarriak 12y ago
    Apple charges the banks and credit card issuers a fee every time Apple Pay is used, rather than charging the company receiving the money.
jessriedel 12y ago
Here's how I think about it: Apple is the user's broker and Stripe is the merchant's broker. Every time there's a transaction between the user and the merchant, they are setting up a deal between their respective brokers. As fgblanch points out, a merchant using Stripe only needs a single account with them to handle credit cards, Apple Pay, and whatever else comes along tomorrow. As Igglybook and zaidf point out, Apple wants to provide the hardware and software for the user, but they don't actually want to be a financial services company like Stripe.
- abhigupta 12y ago
  In other words, Apply Pay is a digital credit card. You still need the remaining infrastructure to process credit cards, as well as be compatible with a physical credit card.
kzanul 12y ago
Apple still needs payment processors and gateways to pass the cryptogram to the relevant networks and issuers. Now that's not to say in the future Apple can't go build their own processor down the line :)
abhigupta 12y ago
Apply Pay is essentially a digitized copy of your physical credit cards. You still need the remaining infrastructure to process credit cards, as well as be compatible with a physical credit card.

I'm not sure I understand Stripe's value proposition here. What is the benefit of using Stripe's library over using ApplePay (PassKit) directly? (Honest question)

rewind 12y ago

If you're using Stripe as your payment processor and using Apple Pay through Stripe (just like choosing a different credit card), then you're still only using one payment processor. All your transfers, transaction data, accounting, etc. is just done through Stripe. You don't care that the customer actually used Apple Pay.

zaidf 12y ago

Apple does not provide the merchant account. Apple Pay serves as the middle party between the merchant account provider(Stripe) and the user with Pay's role being to maintain cards on file and relay it securely to the merchant account providers.

fgblanch 12y ago

I guess the Stripe's value proposition for developers is that they don't have to maintain or support several payment platforms. Just one, Stripe and there they integrate all of them ( Credit Cards, Apple Pay, etc.)

pc 12y ago

You can't use Apple Pay directly: you have to use it with a supported payment platform. (List is at https://developer.apple.com/apple-pay/. https://developer.apple.com/apple-pay/.)

diziet 12y ago
Three of the payment platforms either don't load or show a 'Coming Soon' page. Ouch.
- aapl_bad_stream 12y ago
  If only Apple Pay, had, paid for some good engineers, then their keynote stream may have worked!
nextstep 12y ago
Thanks. Makes sense.
induscreep 12y ago
You actually can: "The alternative is to provide your own server-side solution to receive payments from your app, decrypt payment tokens and interface with the payment provider. Handling credit and debit card payments can be complicated and unless you already have the expertise and systems in place, an SDK from a payment provider is the quickest and most reliable way to support Apple Pay in your app." From: https://developer.apple.com/apple-pay/Getting-Started-with-Apple-Pay.pdf https://developer.apple.com/apple-pay/Getting-Started-with-A...
- jonknee 12y ago
  ... That's not directly. The "interface with the payment provider" is what Stripe is and this lets you interface with Stripe.
  - induscreep 12y ago
    What is the barrier in building your own interface with the payment provider? Is it red tape, or technical challenges?
    - danudey 12y ago
      Both. You have to build a pretty significant architecture which meets PCI compliance (so e.g. hardware firewalls, hosted in a data centre with sufficient physical security, etc. etc), which makes it hugely expensive, and technologically demanding. Then you have to sign a contract with a bank or banks in order to get the process going, which is the red tape part. Then you get to handle all the systems responsible for handling fraud, chargebacks, extra customer service, and so on. And then you pay higher rates because you're doing worthless volumes, even assuming that the banks will deal with you at those volumes. Once you're done that, you've built a small-scale, inefficient, featureless, and altogether shitty version of what Stripe will offer up to anyone with an e-mail address, and it's taken you six to eight months to build. Oh and your app is out of date and all your competitors have taken your customers.
      - 12y ago
awicklander 12y ago
So is Apple Pay in essence another way to get a credit card processed against stripe? If you have an app that customers can store credit cards on, it's not clear to me what the additional benefit of apple pay is? Is it simply a better/faster way of getting the card information to stripe by way of thumb press as opposed to key entered?
- jonknee 12y ago
  I suppose the idea would be that you want to lower the barriers to payment and a thumb press is pretty low.
  - scholia 12y ago
    In Europe, we can already pay for things with contactless bank cards, without even tapping (up to about $30). If you want to do it like NFC or iPay, you can always stick your payment card to the back of your phone.... UKCards Association says "44.6 million contactless cards in circulation in the UK, used to make 22.1 million contactless transactions in May 2014". http://www.theukcardsassociation.org.uk/contactless_consumer/what_is_contactless.asp http://www.theukcardsassociation.org.uk/contactless_consumer...
    - madeofpalk 12y ago
      You joke about sticking your card to your phone but that's what my bank did https://www.commbank.com.au/blog/tap-pay-new-commbank-app-ios-7.html https://www.commbank.com.au/blog/tap-pay-new-commbank-app-io...
      - batuhanicoz 12y ago
        We have NFC sim cards in Turkey that enables regular phones (even dumb ones) to make purchases. (http://www.garanti.com.tr/en/personal_banking/credit_cards/bonus_card_family/bonus_trink/bonus_trink_on_mobile_phone.page? http://www.garanti.com.tr/en/personal_banking/credit_cards/b...) There are also NFC enabled stickers, watches and key fobs.

Igglyboo 12y ago

Apple Pay doesn't actually deal with banks or credit card processors. It's just the frontend for the actual physical payment(card swipe or nfc).

induscreep 12y ago
Then why does Apple Pay have to be "compatible" with visa/MC/Amex? I don't think it just stores a digital version of the credit card...
- jonknee 12y ago
  The card issuers need to sign off on it for the liability purposes.
  - Letio 12y ago
    Apple needs the networks and/or the banks to tokenize the CC numbers at the time the card is imported into the wallet. When the payment is processed, that same network/bank takes the token provided, translates it back to a card number and passes the card number to the issuing bank. I think it's actually quite a feat that Apple managed to tokenize all 800 million existing card numbers, because of this requirement.
    - porsupah 12y ago
      And, apparently, at "card present" transaction rates, which I imagine took some degree of negotiation on Apple's part. http://bankinnovation.net/2014/09/apple-said-to-negotiate-deep-payments-discounts-from-big-banks/ http://bankinnovation.net/2014/09/apple-said-to-negotiate-de...
- zarriak 12y ago
  Apple charges the banks and credit card issuers a fee every time Apple Pay is used, rather than charging the company receiving the money.

jessriedel 12y ago

Here's how I think about it: Apple is the user's broker and Stripe is the merchant's broker. Every time there's a transaction between the user and the merchant, they are setting up a deal between their respective brokers. As fgblanch points out, a merchant using Stripe only needs a single account with them to handle credit cards, Apple Pay, and whatever else comes along tomorrow. As Igglybook and zaidf point out, Apple wants to provide the hardware and software for the user, but they don't actually want to be a financial services company like Stripe.

abhigupta 12y ago
In other words, Apply Pay is a digital credit card. You still need the remaining infrastructure to process credit cards, as well as be compatible with a physical credit card.

kzanul 12y ago

Apple still needs payment processors and gateways to pass the cryptogram to the relevant networks and issuers. Now that's not to say in the future Apple can't go build their own processor down the line :)

abhigupta 12y ago

Apply Pay is essentially a digitized copy of your physical credit cards. You still need the remaining infrastructure to process credit cards, as well as be compatible with a physical credit card.