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Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

(www.axios.com)
721 points hhs | 15 comments | 16 Apr 20 14:35 UTC | HN request time: 0.003s | source | bottom
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fbelzile ◴[16 Apr 20 15:28 UTC] No.22890386[source]▶
I'm very happy with Stripe and for their success, but I plan on switching all my payments to go through PayPal again. I did some math and PayPal offers a better deal for Canadian businesses after Stripe bumps me off of their grandfathered conversion fees in a couple months.

I love the slick interface, but it's simply not worth the thousands per year I'll be saving with the switch.

For me the main selling point for any payment processor is the minimization of fees. Sure, the API's are nice, but I already use a payment gateway for that.

I'm a few clicks away from saving thousands. Am I missing anything?

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1. huhtenberg ◴[16 Apr 20 15:58 UTC] No.22890701[source]▶
Stripe not allowing to withdraw onto USD accounts not located in the US is an absolutely MASSIVE gripe with the service.

We operate internally in USD - we sell in USD, we pay in USD, so we end up being shafted with not one, but two pointless FX conversions. And that's without going into minor stuff like the headaches with refunds done at rates, extra accounting overheads, etc.

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2. adamwathan ◴[16 Apr 20 16:45 UTC] No.22891196[source]▶
Is this country-specific perhaps? I'm in Canada and it's no problem for me to withdraw USD to a Canadian-based USD account.
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3. GeneralTspoon ◴[16 Apr 20 19:59 UTC] No.22892882[source]▶
Paypal also have some crappy rules about adding a USD account to a company not registered in the US.

And they're currency conversion fees are obscene if you want to withdraw USD to EUR (on the order of like ~4% iirc)

4. stripeUSD ◴[16 Apr 20 21:12 UTC] No.22893621[source]▶
This x100. We’re based in the UK but most of our customers are in the US so we bill in USD.

The most annoying thing is that US customers pay additional fees because we’re based in the UK, and our UK customers pay extra fees because we’re billing in dollars.

Stripe customer support very responsive, but they’ve told us the only way to fix it is to open a bank account in the US - which would mean we pay tax in the UK and US. We tried opening a USD bank account in the UK, but Stripe told us after we’d done it that they couldn’t send money to it. Maddening problem with an otherwise brilliant service.

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5. sealthedeal ◴[16 Apr 20 21:17 UTC] No.22893667[source]▶
This is where partnering with a company like Routefusion comes in handy. We would help you repatriate those funds, and move it back to your country of choice at .5% currency exchange :)

check us out developer@routefusion.co, and feel free to email me at colton@routefusion.co if you have any questions!

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6. huhtenberg ◴[16 Apr 20 21:47 UTC] No.22893908[source]▶
I skimmed through your homepage and I frankly have no idea what you do and who it is for. "International bank-to-bank payments" implies that it's some sort of service for banks.
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7. sealthedeal ◴[16 Apr 20 22:08 UTC] No.22894063{3}[source]▶
Thanks for the feedback :)

We are an API for cross-border payments. Our customers are international payroll providers, credit card companies, neo-banks, and other types of companies who need to process X-border payments in their application.

If you were an e-commerce store, we could certainly help you re-patriate funds via our web app, but that’s not our focus.

Are you having issues re-patriating funds? Happy to help in anyway I can!

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8. sleepyhead ◴[17 Apr 20 08:19 UTC] No.22897170[source]▶
You can open a USD account in US with TransferWise business.
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9. sleepyhead ◴[17 Apr 20 08:21 UTC] No.22897183[source]▶
Stripe only support USD accounts in USA and Canada.
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10. huhtenberg ◴[17 Apr 20 08:34 UTC] No.22897254{4}[source]▶
> re-patriating funds

I have no idea what this means.

The problem is that you (and the marketing copy on your site) explain what you DO instead of which of the problems you might help me solve. Use-cases, in plain English.

Perhaps you have enough business already, so you don't really care about pitching passerbys, but if you do, then your pitch is unclear and confusing.

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11. huhtenberg ◴[17 Apr 20 08:39 UTC] No.22897272{3}[source]▶
Looks like a consumer-oriented service, no?
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12. huhtenberg ◴[17 Apr 20 08:43 UTC] No.22897288[source]▶
It's the other way around. Canada is the only exception here.
13. debian3 ◴[17 Apr 20 12:12 UTC] No.22898310{3}[source]▶
Which is already better than Paypal. They don’t support USD account in Canada. That’s the main reason I’m using Stripe now. But seems like Braintree support USD account in Canada. Anyone can confirm?
14. sealthedeal ◴[17 Apr 20 13:54 UTC] No.22898981{5}[source]▶
You actually hit the nail on the head. We have been growing like crazy and the copy on our marketing website hasn't changed since we quickly put it up. I truly appreciate the candidness.

fwiw - re-patriating of funds would be when a company based in the UK for example, is doing business in the USA, and they are getting paid in the USA, in USD. Moving that money back home to the UK in GBP would be the re-patriation of those funds.

15. sleepyhead ◴[20 Apr 20 16:05 UTC] No.22925149{4}[source]▶
They have business accounts too.