
Ask HN: Feedback on “free” payment gateway using a Chrome extension - l5870uoo9y
I am currently fiddling around with an idea to remove transfer fees for e-shops payments. But I don&#x27;t know if it is a crazy idea that will never materialize. Anyhow it goes like this:<p>The e-shop embed an (additional) payment button and a script on the checkout form, just like with Stripe or Paypal. When the user clicks the button it will create a payment on my server with the relevant data from the e-shop, like bank account number, amount, currency, and open a new browser window on my site with the above payment information. This looks like this: http:&#x2F;&#x2F;i.imgur.com&#x2F;m1ltZNg.png<p>To complete the payment the user must install the Chrome extension and navigate to own your online bank, make the transfer to the e-shop&#x27;s bank account using the information given above. This is likely free. When the transfer have been made the user must export the transfer (or recent account transactions) to .CSV format, which many  banks offer. The Chrome extension will intercept this, verify the payment to the e-shop on my server and finally callback to the e-shop&#x27;s checkout form.<p>Could it work?<p>______<p>Thoughts:<p>Planning for launch in Germany (and EU) which has standardized CAMT formatting for data exports.<p>There should be some mechanism to verify that this works with a given online bank.
======
tixocloud
While the idea of a free payment gateway might be enticing for businesses, you
or the businesses you serve need to provide something equally enticing for the
users to go through the hoops of installing a Chrome extension. You'll need to
figure out what the value is for the users - could it be lower prices? And if
so, will the price be low enough for them to use this new method of payment?
There are also other psychologies at play such as trust of the system, gaming
the system, etc. that you will need to think it through.

Not saying it's not a good idea but there's a lot more to think about when it
comes to payments.

~~~
l5870uoo9y
Very valid concerns you raise. I am not sure I can answer them sufficiently,
partly why I posted here. The primarily sales argument safe the ~3%
transactions fee that many big payment gateways charge. In any case, it would
properly only be offered as an alternative payment option besides the
traditional.

Will properly make a MVP and try pitching it to some users and see what the
response is.

------
auganov
Problems off the top of my head: 1) standard bank transfers often aren't
instantaneous (idk about Germany) 2) no support for handling disputes etc. 3)
banks can simply try to block you if it ever gets traction 4) a lot of
friction, no mobile support 5) it's hardly that much better than just having
people do the transfer manually 6) you'll have to integrate across many banks
UIs

Can you even verify if the transfer really happened based on this csv info?

~~~
l5870uoo9y
Thanks for the feedback.

1\. The transfer is immediately registered as a transaction on your account
statement overview.

2\. Yes, disputes would have to be handled by contacting your bank. I don't
know the exact possibilities here, but would notice many complain about
Paypal's polices too.

3\. Yes, but don't see why moving customers away from other payment platforms
to the online would be bad business for them.

4\. Yes, no mobile. There are some constrains to it.

5\. It is essentially just a manual that get verified by a third party. In
principle you could pay online shops manually, but the problem is that the
shop owner would have to manually verify it, that is reading through his
account statements. This Chrome extension does exactly this.

6\. To integrate you need to make sure the bank offers CSV data export with
following the CAMT format (or something similar). This is required by the bank
SEPA agreement in EU.

To verify a payment I reckon you need the following: amount, currency, account
number and a token as payee note, see
[http://i.imgur.com/m1ltZNg.png](http://i.imgur.com/m1ltZNg.png)

The unique token is generated by my server. Naturally there will have to be
some testing with the different online banks.

I have done many (failed) projects before so I am likewise critical.

------
afarrell
My intuition would be that the cost of lost customers who aren't willing to

1) Install a new Chrome extension they've never heard of

2) navigate through their bank's website

Will be the much higher than payment processing fees.

Also, it sounds like you are storing bank account numbers on your machine.

~~~
l5870uoo9y
I imagine it would be an alternative payment method, not the only one. It does
necessarily work with the customers specific bank.

This definitely isn't for anyone. A certain level of tech skills are required.
But the customer do save money. Foreinstance on a 100€ transfer Stripe charges
3,2€ (0.30€ + 2.9%). The cost saving is the main attraction here.

I will only be storing bank account number (IBAN) which to my knowledge is
usually available and doesn't pose a security hazard.

~~~
afarrell
> But the customer do save money

Wait, so the business is the one who needs to integrate this into their
system, but it is the customer who saves money? Why is the business going to
spend 1000s of euros worth of time in order to save < 5% of their customers 4
euros?

Think very hard about the actual degree to which your product would enable a
200-person business to...

1) Increase revenue

2) Cut costs

Quantify that in euros.

------
nautical
I would really love to know what others think on this ..

Can work if buyers are incentivized in some way to do this (too much
friction).

"Free payment gateway" is enough for a lot of businesses to get started.

~~~
l5870uoo9y
I imagine it could offered as an alternative payment option besides the
regular and more expensive. Making it easy to use together with Stripe and
potentially as a plugin for popular e-commerce platforms.

------
stephenr
Intercepting data from a banking site? Sure that doesn't sound fucking dodgy
at all.

~~~
l5870uoo9y
It uses the Chrome download API[1] and only listens to the downloaded files.
If a file is from a specific bank site, contains the token and is in .csv
format it will try to validate it. No user information is stored on my server.

Edit: I view it as similar as synchronising bank data with an external app.

[1]:
[https://developers.chrome.com/extensions/downloads](https://developers.chrome.com/extensions/downloads)

