

WePay: The Online Payment Start-up Behind Occupy Wall Street - billclerico
http://www.forbes.com/sites/elizabethwoyke/2012/01/31/wepay-the-online-payment-startup-behind-occupy-wall-street/

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mattchew
The Forbes headline seems to say WePay is backing or at least somehow rooting
for Occupy Wall Street.

It's a misleading headline. OWS is using WePay for donations, and WePay didn't
shut down the OWS accounts, omg the controversy.

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SeanDav
I would love to see more services like this accessible outside the US. If
PayPal is the 800 pound gorilla in the US it is the 1000-pound-armour-plated-
gorilla-with-phasers-set-to-evaporate in Europe.

~~~
gst
I think there are two main reasons for this:

(1) US laws make it rather hard for payment companies to operate outside the
US (mainly due to money laundering laws). If you want to operate in Europe it
seems much easier if the whole company is located there.

(2) There's just not as much demand for this. The US banking system feels
archaic and you typically can't even electronically transfer funds between
bank accounts (if not both of the accounts belong to yourself). In Europe - on
the other hand - you typically can do free wire transfers and just need the
recipient's IBAN and BIC numbers for this.

~~~
stfu
But you have to consider that for end consumers the transfer fees are just
ridiculous. Depending on your bank account settings it is not unusual to have
a €15 transaction fee + 0.20% of the transfered amount. I have often customers
from other EU countries who don't have PayPal and prefer sending money through
registered mail just because other options are not economical for smaller
amounts of money.

~~~
gst
So far I have bank accounts in Austria and Germany and in both countries
transfers to any other bank within the EU are completely free (and I don't
have to pay any monthly fee for the bank accounts either).

The user interface is also quite OK for those banks. Just enter the
transaction information on the Web site and confirm the security code sent to
you via short message.

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latchkey
I'm a huge fan of WePay. My founder and I needed a Java implementation of
their api, so we wrote one: <https://github.com/lookfirst/WePay-Java-SDK>

They are thinking out of the box by providing services that developers need. A
well documented API and near real-time feedback with their core engineers. In
this regard, PayPal is a joke.

~~~
ryan_f
I've had a different experience using their Ruby SDK and have not found it as
friendly for developers. Their API is decently documented but their
implementation for paying is dependent on redirects and URL callbacks. The
ruby SDK provides little more than a wrapper for passing and retrieving JSON.
Some may prefer this but I felt that I was reinventing the wheel.

I am staying with them for one project because of some services they have that
no one else offers.

I am rooting for WePay but they need to work more on their SDKs to be
developer friendly.

~~~
latchkey
I'm curious, what more did you expect? Exactly what wheels are being
reinvented here?

Their API is pretty brain dead simple (it is just a matter of passing urls and
data around) and the documentation is pretty good once you understand the
general concepts.

I've given them a bit of feedback on things in the docs that needed
improvement, and they've turned around with fixes within minutes sometimes.

I think that if you give them feedback on their apis mailing list about what
you'd like to see added or changed, they'd be more than happy to listen.
_That_ is what really encourages me about this company.

~~~
ryan_f
After using other SDKs from other companies, I expected more than just JSON
returned. There are simple things like raising errors that could be in the
SDK. I'm sure it will be there in due time but not everyone has the same
experience.

I am rooting for them and I am glad to hear others are having better luck than
I was.

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davidpoarch
The article states: "[WePay's] ambition: to move beyond what WePay calls the
“unstructured economy” to be the dominant way people make payments and buy
things online. ...Since WePay can’t yet match PayPal’s brand or awareness, it
aims to offer more appealing design, an expedited set-up process and better
customer service."

If WePay intends to overtake PayPal, I think it will need to do more than
that. An "appealing design, an expedited set-up process and better customer
service" are easy to replicate.

How about thinking out of the box and re-engineering the system? How about
focusing on and addressing PayPal's weaknesses? How about creating a system
that inherently includes automatic fraud prevention (for both buyers and
sellers)? How about minimizing (nearly eliminating) all dispute resolution
scenarios? How about extending such protection to the services marketplace (as
opposed to just products)? How about creating a truly globalized payments
platform (there are several countries where PayPal fails because credit cards
are not used or available as the main form of payment)?

I am a co-founder of a nascent third party payments aggregator (TPPA) called
PayGuard. We are currently building our Beta, and our system addresses all
these issues.

~~~
Steltek
I think the biggest asset would simply being "not PayPal". PP has been
cultivating a bad PR problem lately and systems like these will have a social
lock-in effect. Not quite as bad as Facebook vs Google+ but people would be
reluctant to wander too far out of bounds, especially when bank accounts are
concerned.

You seem to have some great goals yourself, however. Good luck to you!

~~~
EREFUNDO
Actually it is the sellers that PayPal is turning off. Their dispute
resolution policies are abstruse and keep changing in their attempt to protect
buyers. They have relied too heavily in freezing, closing, and even
withdrawing money from sellers’ accounts without prior notice. So many eBay
sellers who have relied on PayPal had their entire businesses destroyed with
one incident. A payment system that focuses on preventive security would not
rely on such heavy handed tactics when resolving disputes between buyers and
sellers. If all users (buyers and sellers) have an equal distribution of
control during the entire transaction then incentives for committing fraud on
both sides will be effectively eliminated. Right now one party gets paid then
the other has to wait for his merchandise. PayGuard will solve these problems.
The challenge now is to get people to start trusting new players in the
market.

~~~
r00fus
Agreed. All WePay needs to do is to scour the collective horror stories of
PayPal screwups, find equitable solutions, and build up street cred.

Of note: WePay mentions that monies are held in a real bank account - IMHO,
this is a huge plus over PayPal who only pretends to be a bank.

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JumpCrisscross
How does WePay contrast with Stripe?

~~~
tlrobinson
I think WePay is easier for non-developers to setup (no website or programming
required), while Stripe is more focused on making their API awesome for
developers.

~~~
ryan_f
After integrating both, this is right on the money. WePay is great for what it
offers on a basic level. Stripe is better with integrating with a site and its
features.

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dw5ight
stick it to the man, wepay!!!!

