Stripe raises $600M at nearly $36B valuation

Stripe cofounder here. This isn't really new -- it's an extension of our last round (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/19/fintech-start-up-stripe-notc...).

That said, we've seen a big spike in signups over the past few weeks. If any HN readers have integrated recently and have feedback, we're always eager to hear it. Feel free to email me at patrick@stripe.com and I'll route to the right team(s).

As always, thank you to the many HNers who are also active Stripe users!

My top issues running my business on Stripe:

1) Many countries still only allow depositing a single currency (i.e. Aus/AUD), doubling the cost of transaction due to the currency conversion, even tripling when we have to convert it back to pay our bills. I always get told either "soon", or "not possible due to the law", despite competitors doing it.

2) If we were an EU company, we'd get charged 1.4%+25c on transactions in the EU, where most of our customers are. Instead, because we're selling from Australia, we get charged 2.9% for some arbitrary reason. This coupled with 1) puts our all-in transaction fees at 5%+ :(

3) I think billing the vendor for refund fees is a really retrograde step - it increases friction in the decision for us when a customer asks for a refund, and industry wide is going to cause less happy customers and less card users online. It's already hard enough convincing Dutch/German customers to use a credit card online.

If any non-EU companies know a cheaper way to process transactions in the EU, I'm all ears...

German checking in. One of the reasons why it’s hard to get us to use a CC is that many of us don’t have credit cards. And why would we? (Except for online payments and other fringe cases.)

However, Stripe offers SEPA direct debit, which is usable with any European bank account and may work better for you.

EDIT: This seems to have sparked some confusion. I'm not saying Germans don't do card payments, I was only speaking of credit cards. We do all have and use debit cards, however, those are of a national scheme with wonderfully low fees, but no online usability.

>However, Stripe offers SEPA direct debit, which is usable with any European bank account and may work better for you.

1) SEPA has an 8-week no-questions no-appeal refund model, which is fundamentally incompatible with a SaaS business

2) Stripe doesn't support SEPA on Checkout

3) Stripe doesn't support SEPA on non-EU/US accounts

Regarding points 2) and 3), I wasn't aware of those limitations. I admit to never having tried to use SEPA direct debit with Stripe, I just saw it in their docs.

Regarding 1): is it? Credit card payments can also be charged back, often for a period longer than 8 weeks. And both "aaS" products as well as certain retailers selling and shipping physical goods, do offer direct debit. I can't quote any fraud rates, but it certainly seems possible to do it.