
Pin is Australia’s first all-in-one payment API - gbpin
https://pin.net.au
======
jkahn
Looks fantastic. I'm interested already and we don't have an immediate need
for the API - but even the web UI looks great.

Very little information on your site, though. Some questions strike me:

\- What path does the money take from the customer to the user of your service
(e.g. me), and how long does it take to get there?

\- What kind of backing/insurance/licenses do you have? If you're a tiny
startup, there's risk for users of your system if you go bust and any money in
transit disappears.

~~~
jbrendel
Very good points. I hope you will put up more substantial information on your
web site.

Consider that we are supposed to trust you with our customer's credit card
information, their and our money. Currently I'm thinking: Who are you and why
should I trust you? There is no information on your site which would give me
any confidence. I'm sure you have all the info, but please share it with us.

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treelovinhippie
OMFG THANKYOU!!! We've been ridiculously disadvantaged with no Stripe, Dwolla,
WePay, Square etc. So many startups have been launched and funded (in the
states) that were possible primarily due to Stripe integration. Not much of a
choice here other than PayPal.

~~~
cynix
None of the other services you listed have a monthly fee. But I guess we
Australians should be used to being ripped off by now.

~~~
jusben1369
"But I guess we Australians should be used to being ripped off by now" With
such a "dog beaten" attitude I'd say it's self fulfilling. Perhaps wait to see
what those fees are, relative to your other options in Australia, before
drawing such a depressing conclusion?

~~~
cynix
I know this is likely going to be better than "other options in Australia",
and I respect their efforts for making this happen, but that's not my point. I
was comparing "options in Australia" to "options in the rest of the world".

The same happens with a lot of different things, such as the cost of computer
hardware/software, furniture/home appliances, cars, etc. Occasionally it's
possible to work around it: I buy most of my gadgets from Amazon or other
US/EU online retailers, and even with international shipping it's cheaper than
buying locally. Unfortunately we often get hit hard on the larger, more
expensive items that are impractical to import: IKEA furnitures cost 3x as
much as in the US, cars 2x as much.

~~~
TimJRobinson
Economies of scale, it's a lot easier to sell to 300 million people than 20
million.

Plus we have the 2nd highest minimum wage in the world (over 2x as high as the
US, our welfare is almost as high as their minimum wage) and we live in an
amazing country, so it all balances out.

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xal
contact me at tobi@shopify.com to get this into Shopify from the beginning. We
really need a better partner in Australia

~~~
sparknlaunch
Please elaborate? Would be good to hear your perspective given your experience
in the market.

~~~
xal
Paypal is the most common option in Australia but for one reason or another
they never launched Paypal Pro there which means that people are stuck with
the older IPN based flow which has some disadvantages ( More confusing,
doesn't make it clear that you don't need paypal account, poor Google
Analytics integration )

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mnbbrown
Firstly, its fantastic to see a service that will hopefully provide a breath
of fresh air to a sector that has almost become archaic, and therefore
difficult to use, in Australia.

What sort of red-tape has been causing you the most trouble? Also, are you
partnering with one of the banks?

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dmboyd
Does anyone have any idea on the background on who's behind this?

The fact that there are no names doesn't exactly instill trust or confidence.

Closest I could get to info would be that the Southern Payment Systems Pty Ltd
resolves on a google search to: <http://www.southernpaymentsystems.com/> which
seems to share the street address of a
Designer(<http://speakinteractive.com/>), a real estate
agency(<http://www.eftosestates.com.au/>) and a ruby on rails
developer(<http://brownbeagle.com.au>)

[update: never mind, found one of the co founders, <http://dompym.com/> pretty
impressive, he's ex SAP and ex Clear Interactive, acquired by the NZ exchange]

~~~
damian2000
and by the looks of things, Grant Thomas (fmr coach of St Kilda, 2001-2006).
<http://www.ferocia.com.au/>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Thomas_%28footballer%29>

~~~
dmboyd
haha, nice!

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jbrendel
I'll say "thank you" after I know more about the pricing and fees and how long
it will take before my money appears in my bank account. It's great that you
are setting up something like this and I really hope for the best. Would love
to use it, but as others have commented, down here we are used to being ripped
off, so when I see "monthly charges", I'm already a bit weary. Still hopeful,
but a bit concerned.

Also, I really hope this will work for Kiwis as well?

~~~
toast76
$50/month 3.0% + 50c per transaction <https://pin.net.au/pricing>

~~~
damian2000
OMFG the fees are the same as the big banks, wrapped in a nicer API.

Suddenly PayPal looks attractive again @ 2.4% + 30c with no monthly fee.
[https://www.paypal-australia.com.au/business/manage-my-
payme...](https://www.paypal-australia.com.au/business/manage-my-
payments/transaction-fees)

~~~
dmboyd
Presumably, the service will be better. Banks in Australia usually need a
deposit of one years of sales if you take yearly subscriptions. Then you need
to go to a payment processor, who charge their own fees structure on top. But
the banks do give you decent service, in that you have someone to call when
something goes wrong.

The worst part of PayPal is undoubtedly the service, I've had experience where
they locked the account and demanded social security no.s and registration
information (via fax) for which there are no Australian equivalents. After
months of them asking for things that don't exist, it took a complaint to the
Financial industry ombudsman for them to de-restrict the account to allow us
to withdraw the funds.

~~~
damian2000
Yeah PayPal has its own problems of course such as the horrible service like
you mention. I had a payment dispute once where neither the customer or the
seller (me) had an issue, but PayPal had automatically flagged it as
suspicious for reasons they wouldn't specify. Mind you that was 1 problem in
several hundred transactions, so it wasn't too bad for me overall. I just
think $50/month would be hard to bear when you've got PayPal in the same
market at no monthly fee and a lower rate.

------
damian2000
Awesome, thanks for this. A couple of years ago I was trying to get setup with
a merchant account at BankWest for online C/C processing - the BW guys in
their online merchant team were totally taking the piss. Kept me waiting for 8
weeks without an answer - so in the end I had to go with PayPal.

------
zizee
Awesome news. Like many Australian devs I have been feeling a distinct lack of
love from other payment solutions. And now I see in a comment above that
braintree is on its was as well.

Who knows, maybe VCs will start investing in Aussie based startup as well?

~~~
davidbanham
Don't believe the hype. It's more difficult to raise capital in Australia, but
it's completely possible. You need to network hard in order to make
connections, but the money is out there.

------
PostOnce
What are the fees? Does it work in New Zealand?

~~~
veb
+1 there's absolutely no reason why they cannot get it working for New Zealand
-- considering most of our banks are actually owned by Australians, and
typically use the same systems!

~~~
te_chris
++ - to note though, it won't be a computational problem, but one to do with
regulation, I would love to not have to deal with DPS and BNZ though.

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mattmanser
Something sticks out like a sore thumb in that API. Where's the param signing
with a secret key?

~~~
Cogito
This was exactly what I thought as well.

Using an HTTPS connection is all well and good, but it is not enough. HTTPS is
susceptible to man in the middle attacks [1], and securing the params with a
pre-shared secret key is essential.

The extra cost in 'complexity' is really far outweighed by the (warranted)
extra security.

[1] <http://www.thoughtcrime.org/software/sslstrip/>

~~~
asharp
Would you mind elaborating?

ssltrip requires a valid root ca, or an ssl library that doesn't check the
signing chain. After using it though, the parameters are unencrypted and so
can simply be sniffed.

Are you attempting to reencrypt the parameters with another key? If so then
why run that through https?

~~~
Aqua_Geek
> Are you attempting to reencrypt the parameters with another key? If so then
> why run that through https?

I think they are talking about generating a hash from all of the parameters in
the request + a secret, pre-shared key. Doing so prevents MITM attacks from
changing the parameters.

IIRC, Amazon does this (among many others).

~~~
jbrendel
Exactly. Have a look here for some information on how to do this:
[http://www.thebuzzmedia.com/designing-a-secure-rest-api-
with...](http://www.thebuzzmedia.com/designing-a-secure-rest-api-without-
oauth-authentication/)

~~~
Bjoern
This article also inspired me to lockdown my own API I designed, its really
good advice. The question is only, they wanted to provide a very simple
interface, what is the right trade-off security vs. developer UI?

------
jeaguilar
The sample request is nearly identical to Stripe. Is it safe to say this is
Stripe for Australia? What's the relationship between Stripe and Pin?

~~~
petitmiam
PinStripe, hmm.

------
10dpd
Can someone explain why a separate payment system is needed for Australian
developers? My nieve understanding is that credit cards are global from a
consumer perspective (i.e. a credit card will work in any country in the
world). Are things different from a developer perpective? If so, why?

~~~
grecy
> My nieve understanding is that credit cards are global from a consumer
> perspective (i.e. a credit card will work in any country in the world).

As someone who has credit cards from 3 different countries, I can tell you
that's very wrong. I'd like to think my CC works anywhere, but oftentimes when
they ask for a ZIP and I don't have one, that's a deal breaker. Sometimes when
the person sees the card is from another country (name of country is in the
bank name) they refuse to use it, even when it matches my accent and driver's
license.

Also it would have been nice if VISA had a global "credit rating" instead of a
separate one for each country. Unfortunately, I now have zero credit in my new
country, which is painful when I have amazing credit in my previous country.
(all VISA cards)

~~~
patio11
_Also it would have been nice if VISA had a global "credit rating" instead of
a separate one for each country. Unfortunately, I now have zero credit in my
new country, which is painful when I have amazing credit in my previous
country. (all VISA cards)_

Pro-tip: if you deal with a bank that has branches in both countries, and
you're sufficiently good of a customer that they can justify an hour of work
for you, you can get around not having a credit history in your newest country
of residence. CitiBank, for example, has an employee in Tokyo whose only job
is being attached to an Experian terminal to make credit decisions for
American expatriates. (It is highly likely that branch level employees at most
CitiBanks are unaware of his existence, so the high-percentage plays are
either speaking to their wealth management group, speaking to their "executive
relocation" group, or sending the bank a letter.)

------
frontier
Really hoping that this will be like the old PayPal, where you could just
setup an account (or multiple!) and just go and start collecting credit card
payments.

Can't do this anymore as they only allow you to link your bank account to a
single PayPal account. Also there are a lot more ID requirements nowadays, so
you can't just setup a virtual business like you used to - a separate account
for each new website.

I can understand why, but surely a suitably long holding period (account
probation period) would solve the fraud and chargeback issues caused by the
scammers who ruin it for the rest of us!

------
garazy
I really hope this works out, the idea is awesome. I suspect there's a fair
amount of red tape to get it launched.

~~~
nopassrecover
I wouldn't say there's a whole lot of idea in this ("bring Stripe to Australia
please" is not new) but I'm hoping the implementation and pricing are both
great.

------
steveh73
Great! Do you plan an having a hosted payment page ala DPS or PayPal though?
I'd much prefer never seeing my customers credit card number at all.

Also please let me know if you're planning on adding support for NZ too, the
situation for accepting payments here is just as dire.

------
ishi
I really wish there was something like this that worked globally, other than
PayPal.

~~~
oceanic
The major problem with financial transactions is that each country (or I
guess, _most_ countries) have different laws regarding banking, fiduciary
responsibility etc.

Paypal/Amazon/GCheckout work globally because they use CC and charge
handsomely for the privilege. Companies like Pin, Stripe and Dwolla are trying
to cut out the idea of merchant accounts (which create the major hassle for a
lot of small practitioners), but that means tailoring your service for local
laws = hard problem.

~~~
steveh73
Amazon and Google Checkout don't work globally (for sellers)

------
djtidau
I can't tell you how happy I am to see this. I was excited to hear about
Braintree expanding to Australia a couple of days ago, but this is much more
promising.

Do you have plans to incorporate recurring charges as well?

I've added myself to the invite list.

~~~
mvboeke
I would be curious to know why you think this looks more promising than
Braintree.

Disclosure: I work at Braintree. I'm not trying to shill here - I'm genuinely
curious about how people think about our stuff vs. other payments companies.

~~~
boundlessdreamz
Kinda offtopic: But since you work at braintree, please have a look at my
comment <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4069105>

~~~
mvboeke
I responded to the original thread.

~~~
boundlessdreamz
Could not find the response :(

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Aidan
Ohhhh thank goodness! We've been waiting a long time for something like this.
It's ridiculous how long it takes to get set up on WPP or eWay with a merchant
account.

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TimJRobinson
Holy crap I love you guys so much! :D I have seriously been looking for a good
payment processor that isn't paypal for over 5 years now, EVERYONE is US only.

THANKYOU!

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ropable
Regardless of what the other details of this product are, the online payments
space could definitely use some extra competition in Australia. Bravo.

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bcowcher
As a former e-commerce web dev, I cant begin to tell you how much this was
sorely needed in Australia. Best of luck to you!

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goatforce5
AUP? What can I (not) sell via your service?

------
ChrisArchitect
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4073620>

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coenhyde
I'm so excited! Current payment gateways are certainly a pain point for
Australian developers.

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chubs
Absolutely brilliant! I'm so glad you made this. Thank you, thank you.

------
dekz
Finally something in Australia with possible potential. No information on
pricing other than a monthly fee + transaction fee.

I'm not sure what a JSON REST API is though.

What does "scheme" in the JSON response correlate to? I'm also not sure why so
much information is essentially echoed back?

~~~
gbpin
It's supposed to mean that the API responds with JSON data (as opposed to,
say, XML). "REST" here just means we use standard URL patterns and rely on
HTTP verbs (e.g. GET), to get stuff done.

~~~
dekz
Sorry I was probably being overly pedantic, I do understand the concepts of
REST and the JSON format. I've never seen it as one buzz phrase though.

~~~
steelaz
I wouldn't call it buzz phrase, I see JSON REST API and I know exactly what it
is and what to expect from it.

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nemesisj
Does this work in non-AUS countries (like possibly the UK?)

~~~
mpclark
Let's hope the 'gb' in the username is a clue.

~~~
oceanic
No, "gb" are the initials of one of the developers. They're targeting
Australia first, but I guess world domination is always possible if things go
well.

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jameswyse
This looks absolutely awesome, Signed up instantly.

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djt
can anyone that has done the research write up the fixed and variable costs of
different payment services and report back to us?

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justinkelly
sounds great - just what we need

questions: \- any word on pricing? will there be a monthly min? \- also can i
set up recurring charges with pin?

great work

cheers

justin

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huragok
You've made me so very, very happy.

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thetron
Brilliant. Thank you. :)

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shawndellysse
I was really hoping that everything would be upside-down on that page.

~~~
jQueryIsAwesome

        if( !Australia )
            document.body.setAttribute("style","-webkit-transform: rotate(180deg);")

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te_chris
How about NZD?

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sparknlaunch
>> _"Transparent Pricing - Monthly service fee + only pay for successful
transactions."_

I cannot see the pricing. Any idea of the monthly service fee and cost per
transaction?

