
Stripe launches beta in the UK - whyleyc
http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/01/payments-startups-stripe-launches-limited-beta-for-uk-payments-with-euros-on-the-way/
======
thomseddon
Does anyone know why the link has changed from TNW
(<http://thenextweb.com/uk/2013/03/01/stripe-uk-europe-launch/>) to
TechCrunch?

It's not really important, just curious if this is some kind of mod preference
for TC? :)

~~~
whyleyc
Good question - I was the original submitter and didn't change it, so must
have been one of the mod's. I preferred TNW's version as there is more context
in it.

Also TNW had the story first - Mike Butcher was late on stage after Patrick's
announcement because he was furiously writing up the story for TC :)

~~~
thomseddon
The plot thickens....

It seems to make more sense to post the TC article and let them "battle it
out" with votes. With no justification what's been done here certainly does
seem odd and, frankly, smacks of some kind of ulterior motive...

~~~
niggler
... That TC pays YC for promoting articles? Wouldn't be surprising given the
ycombinator-centric posts. But it's also possible that mods think readers give
more credence to TC.

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whyleyc
Have been waiting a long time for this :)

When announcing it onstage Patrick said anyone interested in participating in
the beta should email him:

    
    
      patrick [at] stripe [dot] com
    

I hope he's ready for the email deluge !

~~~
pc
Ready :-)

~~~
mrkmcknz
Any idea on a timeframe for full UK launch?

Stripe is a service I'd love to use, however I'm not yet at a stage(small
revenues) where it would be worth bothering you to be part of the 'closed
beta'.

~~~
pc
Feel free to email! That way you'll definitely get invited when we launch
fully.

With regard to timeframes -- it really depends on what we discover during the
beta. There are no major, obvious blockers right now, though.

~~~
edanm
Will launches in new countries start happening faster after the first one? I
have no idea which part of the process is the major blocker for this kind of
service, but I would imagine that if it's laws, then every extra country will
take a lot of extra work.

I ask this as an Israeli that would love to have a good service, but seeing as
we're a tiny country I doubt we're high up on the list :)

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pc86
I'm starting to hate Stripe threads because all it becomes is people
complaining it's not available in their country.

And of course people complaining about people complaining about it not being
available in their country.

~~~
arkitaip
What you see as complaining maybe Stripe sees as valuable feedback that they
can use in their business strategy. Imagine if there were 0 "complaints" -
couldn't that be interpreted as a meaningful signal that interest in Stripe
outside of the US is low?

~~~
pc
Yeah, you're right. Though I can see how it'd be kinda annoying for others, we
definitely find it really useful to hear about the things people wish Stripe
did differently.

~~~
pc86
You guys are doing a fantastic job. Keep it up!

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Geee
"Article 49 of the Treaty on the functioning of the EU (the freedom of
establishment principle) allows entrepreneurs to set up a company in any EU
country."

[http://europa.eu/youreurope/business/starting-
business/setti...](http://europa.eu/youreurope/business/starting-
business/setting-up/index_en.htm)

Also, "Any business legally established in an EU country may open a secondary
establishment (office, agency, branch or subsidiary) in another EU country."

[http://europa.eu/youreurope/business/expanding-
business/open...](http://europa.eu/youreurope/business/expanding-
business/opening-branch/index_en.htm)

Now, someone should set up a web service which makes it easy for EU citizens
to incorporate in the UK.

~~~
adrianhoward
_Now, someone should set up a web service which makes it easy for EU citizens
to incorporate in the UK._

Dozens already
[http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/toolsToHelp/formationAgents...](http://www.companieshouse.gov.uk/toolsToHelp/formationAgents.shtml)

~~~
petercooper
Or just apply to Companies House directly:
<https://ewf.companieshouse.gov.uk//runpage?page=welcome> \- There's almost
nothing to it.

I did it a couple of years ago and it literally took 15 minutes of my time and
cost £15.

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tomelders
Today is a watershed moment for UK developers. I don't think it's hyperbole to
say that. In a few years, we will look back on our lives before this day and
wonder

a) Why the hell we put up with all that crap for so long. b) Why didn't we
build Stripe ourselves.

~~~
naz
> b) Why didn't we build Stripe ourselves.

In a way, we did. There are a couple of UK developers at Stripe -- and we want
more: <https://stripe.com/jobs>.

~~~
colmvp
But seriously, why didn't people in other countries do their own Stripe? It's
not like the UK is short of talented engineers.

~~~
Kliment
Paymill did a very similar service and is available in quite a few countries.

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jbrooksuk
This is one of the best things that's happened to the UK in the payment
industry in years.

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RobAley
Does it support Verified by Visa or Mastercard SecureCode? Not that I like
them much, but they provide some protection for merchants against chargebacks.

~~~
Silhouette
I would also like to hear about their plans in this area. The current
information on the Stripe web site says they don't use 3D Secure:

<https://support.stripe.com/questions/3d-secure>

I think if they're going to be a serious card payment service in Europe, that
will need to change reasonably quickly. With the issue of transferring
liability for chargebacks, saying "Well, US banks don't do it, and European
banks understand that" isn't going to cut it for long with an international
client base. After all, US banks don't do a lot of things, which is why we all
have to use these Palaeolithic era card schemes to accept payments from US
customers in the first place.

~~~
majc2
Absolutely; just to expand on the point - 3D secure is now prevenalant, if you
just check for enrolment with 3D Secure - as a vendor you're generally no
longer liable to chargebacks (there are a few edge cases around pre-paid and
commercial cards). It doesn't matter if the issuing bank is signed up or not.

Paymill already support 3D secure - so I would have to imagine that stripe's
3D secure support can't be far behind.

------
TomGullen
I was wondering why Paypal were phoning me up a lot recently to see how I was
doing and if I needed any help with anything!

We're lucky enough to be on the Beta, can't wait to dig in and start the
transition.

------
nulluk
Really good news. Can't wait to start taking payments by stripe for our
"Stripe for Magento" extension, how about that for meta?

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10dpd
Awesome news!

Is it possible to use Stripe to handle third party payments? E.g. A site owner
(A) creates a website. A user (B) of that site wants to sell a product. (B)
creates a product page and accept payments from their own customers (C).
Ideally (C) would pay (B) using Stripe, and (A) would receive a percentage of
the revenue received from (C).

~~~
nulluk
Stripe Connect with collecting fees? -
<https://stripe.com/docs/connect/collecting-fees>

~~~
StavrosK
Damn, that's pretty fantastic. Stripe have been killing it.

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rikacomet
stripe should launch in India, I'm more than ready to help out with that. The
market here, for stripe is huge! A lot of alternatives exist, but all of them
frankly su%k!

~~~
shrikant
I don't think Stripe have any technical problems launching in India, it's
pretty much all about navigating the regulatory hurdles.

They'd quickly get bashed into submission by the Reserve Bank of India
guidelines, which is what happened to Paypal. The RBI will force all payment
processors to be regulated as banks, or conduct business entirely through
banks.

~~~
rikacomet
no, what happened to paypal was post 26/11 revelation that the splinter cells
had used paypal to transfer money.

RBI is just another central bank.

Stripe is way different than Paypal. And yes, paypal is still running, the
loss of business is due to the fact that they still haven't worked out the tax
technicalities, and their UI has become complex.

EDIT: Just want to add, that right now is the right time to invest in India,
because of the market conditions in general, organised retail is picking up,
credit/debit card usage is increasing again, mobile payments has been
introduced, taxation policy would become unified starting April 1 under GST&
other singular taxes, and the economic potential of India.

India is 3rd on Purchasing Power Parity, yet it is only the barely top 10 in
terms of GDP, and it all points to a under-saturated market. Really! Entering
India, can make stripe into a multi-billion dollar company, if done right

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konradb
Out of interest what makes Stripe compelling over other alternatives such as
Sagepay?

This seemed to be an already solved problem ([company like sagepay] ->
merchant account -> bank account) but there's a lot of fanfair here so I must
not be understanding what makes Stripe different.

~~~
adrianhoward
Short version:

* Sane well thought out APIs that let you do stuff very, very quickly and easily

* You don't have have a merchant account - so the time taken to get payments up and running drops from weeks/months to almost nothing

* Attractive fee structure - especially for bootstrapped projects (you don't pay them until you get paid)

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jonascopenhagen
Awesome. Here's hoping Denmark/Scandinavia is next.

~~~
StavrosK
Why can't you use the UK version? With all of the EU being integrated,
shouldn't it work across the entire thing?

~~~
mmahemoff
Their statement says "EUR coming soon" so it should be a good sign for Euro
countries.

~~~
mattmanser
A subset of European countries use the euro of which Denmark is not one of
that subset.

------
egze
Any plans for Germany?

~~~
jonascopenhagen
<https://www.paymill.com/> is a German company and offers a Stripe-like
service for Germany and a large number of other countries.

~~~
DoubleMalt
I was happy to give paymill a try as Stripe was not available in Europe. I
even fixed their Java API (The pull request was accepted pretty swiftly)

However they lost me when they introduced a breaking change to the API without
notification. We were still in the testing phase, but this is just a big NONO.

Also they did not react to request about getting a new contract because of a
changed Bank account.

Happy to use stripe though.

~~~
pbiggar
You'll love how stripe handles breaking changes. Each time they make a
breaking change, they create a new version of the API, and keep all customers
pinned on the current one. Then, in the UI I can choose to switch to a new
version of the API, and see a list of what's changed. Of the 10 API versions
since I started, 2 might have broken something for me, but I can just ignore
that until I find time to upgrade.

Stellar stuff!

------
NuZZ
Australia is pretty much dominated by Paypal. Was excited to get to use Stripe
for a new project but got sad when I realized it wasn't available here.

~~~
philoye
Pin [1] just launched last week. It is a similar all-in-one payment solution
(no merchant account needed), but homegrown in Australia.

[1] <https://pin.net.au>

~~~
coffeecheque
Why does it have a monthly fee? What are the differences between the US and
AUS markets that require Australian users to pay three different fees to use a
payment gateway?

~~~
nwh
I was part of the beta and wondered that too. It's almost like they don't
expect to cover their internal costs with their (reasonably pricy) cut of each
transaction.

------
lotsofcows
How does Stripe mitigate PCIDSS requirements?

~~~
jeremyjh
The card number never hits the merchant's web server, so currently they do not
have to be compliant.

There is talk in the industry that this will be changing actually; as the card
number is still vulnerable to javascript that run's in the merchant's web
page. So if the merchant is hacked and their website is compromised then CC
numbers are vulnerable. So it is likely at least some of the applicable PCI
DSS requirements (and auditing of them) will eventually be required.

~~~
lotsofcows
Anyone who takes credit card payments must be PCIDSS compliant. How the
payment's taken is irrelevant.

Presumably Stripe reduces this to the level of completing the SAQ A?

~~~
jusben1369
That's the right way to explain it Yes.

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chaghalibaghali
I'd like to give a shout out to the guys from Paymill (www.paymill.com) - they
sponsor the HNLondon events and when Patrick from Stripe turned up a few
nights ago they were the ones that asked him to get on stage and give a quick
talk, despite the obvious overlap of their products.

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sschueller
Cool, I hope Switzerland won't be last. 7m people isn't interesting enough for
many companies. :(

~~~
mobweb
Seeing how Switzerland isn't a member of the EU, I'd say don't get your hopes
up anytime soon...

~~~
lvh
I'm not sure if that would be to their detriment. Demand in other EU countries
is likely to go down, since it's plausible to incorporate (or incorporate a
subsidiary) in the UK to get Stripe now :)

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TomAnthony
This is great.. but when is it coming to the UK!?!?

...

Oh.

~~~
colinmarc
Beat me to the joke!

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nicholassmith
This is great news for UK businesses, welcome to our wonderfully miserably
cold shores Stripe.

Although, you know it's much nicer up North outside London. Much nicer.

~~~
benhalllondon
The founders are from Ireland, they know miserable cold shores!

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cohort
Is there a sign up form for beta?

~~~
latterd
I want to know this also? However there is:

<https://stripe.com/global>

You can sign up to get notified about UK launch, you could try that, I have.

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kevbam
Finally!!!!!!

