

Stripe in Canada - boucher
https://stripe.com/blog/stripe-in-canada

======
kurtvarner
_In many ways, launching in Canada is a big step for us—going from 1 to 2 is
often harder than going from 2 to n—but it’s only a small piece of what we
have in mind. We grew up in countries from Honduras to Kenya, and a large part
of why we’re so eager to build Stripe is to help those outside the US to
participate as first-class citizens in the internet economy._

I'm glad they address this before people complain about Stripe _only_ moving
to Canada.

~~~
batgaijin
I'm very curious to how much time they have budgeted for this - has this been
consuming 50% of their time? 75%?

It's really hard for me to tell if this was a real problem for them, or if
they were just working on other stuff because the competition is still non-
existent.

~~~
vitno
Moving to other countries is crazy difficult. They have to deal with a whole
host of legal BS every time.

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xal
We at Shopify just enabled automatic account provisioning for Canadians. End
of an era of endless pain. We are thrilled!

~~~
fruchtose
Speaking as a non-merchant, I'm curious. What's the most painful thing that
Stripe took care of?

~~~
tobyjsullivan
I have yet to implement Stripe but PayPal's options without a monthly fee are
downright goofy (and PayPal is the only other processor to have a no-monthly-
fee option in Canada). "Buy now" buttons and IPN... eww.

~~~
tobyjsullivan
Okay, now that I've officially implemented Stripe the official answer is dev
time. PayPal took days to get a full solution implented (start to finish).
Stripe took on the order of three to five hours. I can already tell
maintenance will be almost non-existent in comparison and user experience is
way, way better.

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drm237
This is great news. While working with Stripe today, I noticed something a bit
unnerving. The Stripe charge method will create a charge even if the CVC and
the AVS fraud checks fail. It's then up to you to monitor this and reverse the
charge if you feel it's too high risk (there's no fee reversal though). There
are ways to get around this with custom development, but that doesn't help for
people who are using software that's already integrated with Stripe. It would
be great to see a fraud setting that would allow you to prohibit charges from
going through depending on what checks fail.

~~~
michaelschade
As a brief bit of background: these charges are accepted because card brands
do not always decline if the CVC fails (and AVS has no effect); instead,
they're taking several signals into account. We expose as much data as
possible to give you full control ([https://answers.stripe.com/questions/what-
controls-for-fraud...](https://answers.stripe.com/questions/what-controls-for-
fraud-prevention-does-stripe-offer)).

That said, I really appreciate the feedback. We're actively working on better
fraud controls that should be ready soon!

~~~
drm237
Thanks for the response. I use Stripe for 3 companies and absolutely love it!
While giving us full control is nice, it doesn't help when we're using a pre-
built integration, like an ecommerce platform that supports Stripe. In this
case, we either need to re-write the Stripe integration or accept that we have
no automatic fraud controls.

~~~
subpixel
Agreed. I have a client reeling from fraudulent orders right now and looking
to change payment systems. In order to suggest Stripe I'd need to show how he
can set up his own rules within Stripe, e.g.:

\- billing country/shipping country mis-match? DENY \- AVS mismatch or
missing? REVIEW \- CVC mismatch or missing? DENY \- order over $X? REVIEW \-
order from country in list X? DENY

Those are just the settings this client would prefer, but each user should be
able to roll their own, regardless of whether they're using a custom
integration or off-the-shelf third-party integration.

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redstripe
This is great. Although I was a bit surprised by the lengthy prohibited
businesses section - <https://stripe.com/ca/terms#Prohibited+Businesses>

There are some legitimate business apps that not allowed. e.g. anything twilio
based: (36) prepaid phone cards, phone services or cell phones

~~~
nucleardog
The ban on e-cigarette sales is also confusing. They are completely legal to
distribute and own in Canada.

~~~
geoka9
Just as "adult" content is, right?

I wonder why a blanket ban of pornography - is it because of the upstream
providers or a policy of Stripe?

~~~
tisme
That's a risk category issue. Porn is categorized as 'high risk' and you need
a different merchant account class and associated review procedure for that.
You will also pay (sometimes much) higher fees, potentially you'll have to
accept a hold-back period and there will be a periodical high-risk fee that
you need to pay.

~~~
geoka9
Is processing payments for porn sites so much different that companies that
specialize in it exclusively are needed? Why can't a company like Paypal or
Stripe support those merchant account classes and procedures?

~~~
shinratdr
It's all about the rate of chargebacks and fraud. I would hardly be surprised
if your average porn site was subject to both frequent chargebacks and heavy
use of stolen credit card numbers, if not both at the same time.

That and association. PayPal just doesn't want their name associated with
stuff like that. It's hardly limited to just porn. Anything remotely sexual is
rarely sold via PayPal or a major non-Adult-oriented payment processor.

~~~
geoka9
_and association. PayPal just doesn't want their name associated with stuff
like that._

Yeah, I suspect this is the real reason.

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whyleyc
Good job guys - what's your ETA for the UK ?

We're crying out for you !

~~~
h2s
Yes we are. Shut up and take my money.

~~~
mietek
And mine!

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run4yourlives
Thank you stripe for:

1\. Listening to us :-) 2\. Adding a viable resource to the Canadian
marketplace.

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Dystopian
GREAT STUFF STRIPE!

 _Crossing Stripe off the list of innovative services I can't use in Canada_

Will definitely use you for my next product!

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tibbon
This is a great step. I'm _really_ looking forward to being able to split
transactions with the Platform so I can easily create an Apple-like App Store
experience (where my customers get 90% of whatever and I get 10% of the
transaction).

~~~
amfeng
You can do this with Apps already (although it's still in beta)! (:

<https://stripe.com/docs/apps>

~~~
amfeng
Whoops, here's the relevant fee-splitting docs:

<https://stripe.com/docs/apps/fee-splitting>

~~~
tibbon
Thank you much. I didn't know they implemented that yet! AWESOME.

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hakanito
Great work! Naturally I figure Sweden will be next ;)

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wingerlang
Please, take it to Sweden!

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wildmXranat
Yes! I received my Beta invite last night and integrating with Stripe moved to
the top of my to-do list.

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d0m
That Country selection drop-down is pretty slick, love it. Is there any plan
in open sourcing it?

~~~
pc86
What is there to open source? It's HTML, CSS and JS.

~~~
biot
It's also copyrighted, meaning that while you may be able to study the source
and prepare your own implementation, you would be unable to use any of the
assets. Open sourcing it would give you the legal right to use it verbatim
according to the terms of whatever license they choose.

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shyn3
They forgot Interac for Canadians.

~~~
tobyjsullivan
I don't think that's a feature anybody is pining over (with the possible
exception of a very small percentage of end-customers who don't have credit
cards).

Although a few web sites accept it (I think), I don't think I've ever heard of
anyone actually buying stuff on-line with Interac. Anybody have any data to
rebut that?

~~~
goodcanadian
I did once use Interac for an online purchase. It was because the merchant
required a "Verified by Mastercard" or some such which was impossible for me
to get on my Canadian credit card without a Canadian address (I live
overseas). It is a bit of an edge case, I admit, and I would still choose the
credit card over the debit card most of the time, but it is once example where
accepting Interac was a good thing for the consumer. Of course, I would have
been happier if they just accepted my credit card without the "Verified by
Mastercard" BS.

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robmclarty
So much less pain in Canada now. Thank you Stripe!

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jblake
I'm currently on Beanstream with terms that were acceptable at the time (hard
to get a Merchant Account) but are now completely unacceptable and am
interested in a switch.

\- 5% 6 month rolling reserve //

\- 2 week + 5 day lag settlements //

\- 2.8% blended + monthly fees.

Am I crazy to not switch, or should I present this to Beanstream and get
better terms? Other than my terms, I have nothing but ecstatically positive
things to say about BS.

Note: my terms are like so because of the nature of my business model. It is
high risk, like a TPPA (third party payment aggregator). Think: Eventbrite.
Appreciate the feedback.

~~~
jblake
I say "High Risk" because that is how it was evaluated at the time. We have
had our Beanstream account for over 6 months with zero chargebacks, a 100%
clean record. If a Stripe rep appears here and makes an offer -
jeff@goodnights.me - you have my business.

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slajax
If Stripe and Square made a baby it would be the most glorious merchant baby
ever.

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juzfoo
Great News! Have couple of questions though, 1\. What are the PCI implications
if I were to use stripe.js in my site? Will I have to get my application and
deployment stack PCI verified?

2\. I will have customers from both US and Europe, so what is the ideal
approach to support multi currency so that customers end up paying the same
(or close to same) price that they saw on my website?

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47
It still does not let you charge in US Dollars (Yes I know the customer can
pay in what ever currency they want). But from a Canadian business point of
view where your large section of customers are from US. Stripe is still not a
very attractive option.

~~~
boucher
Actually, you can choose to charge in either USD or CAD, but you can only
choose one with your account. If you need to charge in both currencies, for
the moment we recommend creating two separate Stripe accounts.

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conradfr
I often speak about Stripe here in France and nobody knows it. I hope it will
come sooner than later because the market of credit card (well, debit card)
charging only offer horrible tools (and the usual PayPal).

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braver
PayPal is really great. Buts it has oldish APIs and horrible documentation.
Great to see promising services like stripe moving out of the US. Looking
forward to see you guys all over the globe.

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tsieling
This is great news. We got into the beta for Canadian service and what a
breath of fresh air. Goodbye, forever, Paypal, I look forward to watching your
slow, sad demise.

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armandososa
Yay! I think it's easier to open an account in Canada from outside than
opening one in the US. Do you know if that's true for Mexico?

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noirman
Yes!!! Great job, Stripe Team.

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brendanobrien
So excited! Thank you Stripe!

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j45
This is great news.

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indiecore
:D

