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.

I used to live in Poland (so just across the border from Germany) and now I'm a UK resident, and your question is really baffling, since in both of these countries people use (contactless) card payments for pretty much everything. Germany is definitely an outlier and your comment doesn't really explain why. Is this a cultural thing, regulatory issue, or maybe banks colluding to protect their interests?

Swede here. Really baffling for me too. My kids have pretty much never even seen cash. I use the nationwide app Swish to send money to people using their phone number (almost every Swede is connected since it's pushed by all big banks) and only use contactless credit card.

How come Germany is so cash positive? Personally I think Sweden has gone a bit far, where some old people have been put in a weird spot where they can't pay because they're technologically illiterate.

Other people have replied to your message already and pointed out that we do use cards, just not credit cards. I figured that was clear in my comment, but apparently it wasn't, so I'll go ahead and edit that.

As for why we're so cash positive: one of the factors is privacy. If you pay for everything electronically both your bank and merchants are in the position to build a profile on you. If you use a non-local scheme (e.g. MC or Visa), they can too.