
Send payouts with Stripe - pc
https://stripe.com/blog/send-payouts-with-stripe/
======
zende
(I work at Balanced)

Balanced (<https://balancedpayments.com>) provides a payouts solution for
marketplaces like redditgifts, Crowdtilt, Fancy, Artsy, Visual.ly, and many
others.

The differences with Stripe include the money being available for payout
immediately (instead of 5 days), and the recipient will receive the money the
next business day. Balanced has also performed a lot of work to verify
merchants with as little information as possible — name, dob, and address.
Instead of SSN for an individual you only need to pass in the last four.

~~~
pc
Stripe actually requires substantially less information -- just the
recipient's name.

Still, this isn't about Stripe vs Balanced -- we just built the API many of
our users wanted. Hope you guys continue to do well!

~~~
spoiledtechie
Its nice to see that Stripe wishes competitors well when all Balanced tried to
do was promote their brand.

~~~
zende
I'm sorry if we gave you that impression.

All three founders have engineering degrees. I built the original version of
the product, was the second engineer at Milo.com, and wrote DDoS prevention
software in college. Mahmoud built high-frequency trading systems for Wachovia
Securities and built Milo.com's matching and categorization system. Jareau
studied Electrical Engineering at U Penn, built GPS enabled devices in
college, and wrote Milo.com's original systems to interact pull in data from
retailers.

Even our General Counsel codes. He studied Symbolic Systems and wrote some of
our internal reporting systems in Python.

~~~
johncoogan
I fail to see how this addresses the idea that Balanced was "promoting their
brand." Was anyone questioning the engineering talent at either company?

Stripe wrote this blog post to promote their brand, Balanced let potential
customers know that they have similar functionality. Both companies, in my
opinion, offer extremely high-quality services (I have used both in
production) and have great engineering talent. I do not think we should knock
either company for "promoting their brand", it's important that potential
customers (read: HN users) are able to make informed decisions. I think zende,
pc, and the original blog post all do a good job of articulating the features
available through their respective APIs.

~~~
nayefc
I agree. I'm starting to look at Balanced differently now.

~~~
jacobolus
He clearly intended to answer this guy
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5827717>

------
jasonswett
I assume the author of the announcement wrote the example code with the
longshot hope that some Stripe users would say, "Hey, I guess I'll send Amber
Feng three thousand bucks, just to see if this works." Takeaway point: always
write code examples in such a way that a straight copy-and-paste might send
you a lot of money.

~~~
amfeng
It's a test-mode API call, so I'm sadly not getting any money from this. (:

------
silverbax88
I just used Stripe for one of my major annual events. I used PayPal the first
two years, and all I can say is Stripe is far superior to PayPal. I do wish
the dashboard was a little more configurable, but that's minor. Everything
else is so much better.

Pros: \+ auto deposit into the back account without having to make requests

\+ easy refund process

\+ easy charge identification process

Cons:

\- a few customers like using PayPal, so there's that. We dropped PayPal
entirely from the online sign up and payment so for the users who wanted
PayPal we had to send them our PayPal address. Not entirely smooth or
professional, but that's not Stripe's fault, it's the reality of having an
entrenched payment processor.

\- the dashboard displays total volume, and that's it. Would like this to be
configurable. Showing total volume since day 1 is pretty useless, especially
since it does not appear to remove refunds.

~~~
amfeng
Which parts of the dashboard in particular? Would love to hear your feedback
at amber@stripe.com!

~~~
silverbax88
I don't have much to complain about, but I will gather my thoughts and shoot
them over. Really a huge fan of the product, though.

~~~
jusben1369
It's a paid add on but maybe look at DigMyData too.

------
randall
I'm most interested in the inverse... allowing customers to send us cash
directly from their bank accounts for $.25 per transfer (instead of the
bullshit credit card company fees). I'm sure there's some serious fraud
implications that Stripe would have to deal with to ensure validity, but is
that coming?

~~~
ajsharp
FWIW, Balanced has this functionality:
[https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#crea...](https://www.balancedpayments.com/docs/api?language=bash#create-
a-new-debit)

~~~
randall
Network effects. :) I'm not going to swap stripe for balanced at this point,
but would happily offer customers the ability to pay with a bank account if
they prefer.

~~~
aioprisan
as a customer, why would I ever sign up for bank account payments vs card?
with credit cards, one call to amex and a $5k charge gets instantly removed
and I get the credit line adjustment, but with a checking account, this can
take much longer and stuck cash-less for a while

~~~
randall
We have customers who prefer paper invoicing. We're more B2B-ey. We could do
their net30 payment terms all electronically, which would be a big plus for
them.

------
troyk
This is cool, but the money has to be charged via credit card first right? It
would be nice to transfer money from the bank account linked to stripe to
another account, and as a user of Stripe's connect API, it would be nice to
enable this in our apps for our users.

Even cooler would be full blown ACH. We are working with ACH providers now and
what a stark contrast to the beauty of stripe. All require some form of
monthly fee, paper set-up forms with 1-2 week delays (vetting periods) and
API's from the 90's

~~~
amfeng
(I work at Stripe.)

Right. Those are both things that are on our product roadmap. (:

~~~
JshWright
On an only moderately related note... here are two more things that I would
love to see on the roadmap:

1) Better support for disputes in the API (right now to get all our disputes,
we have to pull _all_ charges and walk them...)

2) The ability to generate test disputes. You guys provide an awesome test
API, but there's no way to generate disputed charges in testing, so I can't
test any of that functionality...

~~~
amfeng
1) You should be able to pass in "disputed=true" to the charge listing call:
GET <https://api.stripe.com/v1/charges?disputed=true>

2) Definitely. We'll keep that in mind!

~~~
JshWright
Ah, the folks in your IRC channel (and your docs) didn't know that one...
Awesome, thank you!

------
losvedir
Congrats on the launch!

My startup was in the private beta for this and is in the process of switching
to Stripe for ACH payouts from our previous provider bill.com. The folks at
Stripe are super friendly and helpful. Two thumbs up! :)

------
zrail
This sounds pretty awesome, I can't wait to try it out.

FYI I'm working on a guide to integrating Stripe with Rails[1] and I'll
definitely be covering this, as well as Stripe Connect.

[1]: <http://www.petekeen.com/mastering-modern-payments>

------
zbush
Now that payment processors like Stripe and Balanced are providing very
similar services, what serves to differentiate them? As each of these
companies release features, they become closer and closer to converging to the
exact same product. I'm seeing the same fees, the same abilities to payout,
the same ability to act as a marketplace, with only a few very minor
differences. Why should someone pick Stripe over Balanced, or vice versa?

~~~
nairteashop
I think you should pick based on your primary use case, i.e. whether you are a
merchant (stripe) or a marketplace (balanced).

IMO in a couple of years the offerings from these two companies will be so
close that this distinction won't matter, but for now they are converging in
from different directions so you should choose appropriately.

(I feel this is a lot like Box vs. Dropbox. One started from the
team/enterprise side, and the other from the personal/consumer side, but now
Box offers free 5GB for personal use, Dropbox offers dropbox for teams etc. A
couple of years back, it mattered which one you picked depending on your use
case, but these days not so much.)

------
run4yourlives
Please bring this to Canadian Bank accounts. Please, please please. :-)

~~~
lacero
Interac.ca email money transfer

~~~
run4yourlives
_If your financial institution does not yet offer the service, or if you don't
bank online... You will be required to register and provide your banking
information in order for the money to be deposited into your bank account. The
deposit usually takes 4 - 6 business days to process and a $4.00 fee will be
deducted from the deposit amount._

Not really compatible.

------
aaronbrethorst
How does this jive with laws around transmitting money?

~~~
pc
Tl;dr: we work with a bank to do this; we do lots of checks; and you're
required to verify the identity of the recipients. See
[https://stripe.com/docs/tutorials/sending-
transfers#verifyin...](https://stripe.com/docs/tutorials/sending-
transfers#verifying-recipients) for more info.

~~~
thinkcomp
Do the funds ever sit in your (Stripe's) account or is the ACH transfer direct
from the card to the destination account?

~~~
ajsharp
Come on Aaron. As someone who formerly ran a payments company, _you know_ that
going direct from a credit card to a bank account is not possible with today's
banking infrastructure. Of course the funds go to their account. You know
that, but you're clearly trying to prove a point here. Please, do it somewhere
else.

~~~
thinkcomp
Of course it's possible. Stripe could give its processor the routing and
account number of its customer to deposit the funds in in place of its own
routing and account number. This is why the Department of the Treasury
distinguishes between payment processing companies and money transmitters.

By the way, I still run a payments company, and you should not assume that you
know what I know (or don't).

~~~
ajsharp
My fault, I stand corrected.

------
tyre
How long does it take from the time I create the transfer to it hitting the
user's bank account?

~~~
amfeng
It's next day, depending on what time you create the transfer.

[https://stripe.com/docs/tutorials/sending-
transfers#transfer...](https://stripe.com/docs/tutorials/sending-
transfers#transfer-timeline)

------
jonthepirate
Sweet.. can't wait for full ACH! ... watch out Balanced.. they're on your
tail!

------
samwillis
Any chance of this coming to the UK? Loving the UK Beta for cc payments!

~~~
daveoh
The uk beta is awesome! I would love to know when we can send money to UK and
other EU accounts. Any stripe employees care to comment on any potential roll
out roadmap outside of the US?

------
ISL
$0.25/transfer, without a cap on the amount? Might expose Stripe to a lot of
risk on large transfers?

Example: If something goes sideways on an $100k transfer, $0.25 is 0.0003% of
the borked transaction....

~~~
jaredstenquist
Since this feature is backed by a bank (FDIC backed bank no doubt) I assume it
has the same protection as any other transfer and that the backing-bank is
actually shouldering the risk.

------
dblock
It's ridiculously hard to launch a new marketplace. I think it's awesome that
we have more API choices.

My next big problem is taxes. I wish one of these two could make it a no-
brainer for the same market-place scenario (eg. selling a work from a South
African gallery to a customer in France via a U.S. based marketplace).

As a footnote, I am a very happy Balanced customer @ <http://artsy.net>.

------
ROFISH
Just to be clear, this requires a balance in your Stripe account? What if you
do not have a balance? How does this affect the currently (already very slow)
7 day payout? If an account is balance holding, and then you withdraw to your
own bank account, does that mean the 7 days starts then? What if you do not
have enough balance?

------
danecjensen
Can't I build a marketplace with stripe connect? How is this different?

~~~
patio11
It supports substantially more complicated movements of money. Stripe Connect
is basically "Bring your own Stripe account. We handle the API integration for
you." This lets you do things like (hypothetical case for Airbnb-clone) "Pay
the room lister 90% of the amount charged 5 days after the later of
'satisfactory feedback received from renter' or '10 days after checkout'.
Then, pay us our 10% fee for enabling the transaction."

Bonus: with this, the lister doesn't need a Stripe account and will perceive
all of their interactions with money being handled by you or their bank. This
means you don't have to, as a part of making the sale to them to list their
room, convince them "You should really open a Stripe account."

------
anderspetersson
Really neat feature.

Is a rollout to scandinavia in the weeks, months or years-timeframe?

------
rebelidealist
From my understanding it takes 7 days for the funds charged with a credit card
to be available? In this case, is there an api to show how much is actually
available to payout to 3rd party?

~~~
amfeng
Yep! <https://stripe.com/docs/api#balance>

------
niico
Does the font rendering look bad to all of us?
<http://cl.ly/image/0S3B0H241w01>

~~~
amfeng
Hm, that's interesting.

What OS/browser are you on? (Feel free to email me at amber@stripe.com as
well.)

------
dm8
Apart from Balanced Payments and Dwolla I don't think anyone gives a simple
way (means using API) to send payouts. This could be huge!

~~~
bob13579
Balanced Payments only allows transfers to customers with Wells Fargo
accounts, right? Does Stripe allow transfers to all banks?

~~~
ajsharp
You can transfer to any US bank account with Balanced. Wells Fargo accounts
benefit from same day transfers, while all other accounts are next business
day.

------
mtgx
When is there going to be a serious Paypal alternative that works pretty much
everywhere, internationally?

~~~
jedberg
Not for a long long time. The reason Paypal doesn't work everywhere is because
of crazy laws, not technology.

And Paypal can afford many more hours of lawyering than most startups.

------
thedangler
Can't wait for Canada to get this.

~~~
fudged71
Seconded. I will use this immediately.

------
ehdeelee
She went to my school Berkeley!

------
thedogeye
Can Stripe now be used to accept ACH payments as well as send them?

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conductr
What does the payee see? My business name, stripe's name, etc

~~~
amfeng
Your business name, along with the transfer statement descriptor you specify
(though this varies by bank).

------
LemonSX
Keep up the great work, I absolutely love you guys!

------
azharcs
¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

