
Braintree launches instant underwriting - thehammer
http://pandodaily.com/2012/10/01/a-new-twist-in-the-three-way-payment-wars-braintree-finally-offers-instant-underwriting/
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jim-greer
"A recent acquisition of digital wallet company Venmo gave it another key
arrow in the quiver: The promise to extend one-click payments across its
entire portfolio. In other words if you’ve ever purchased an Uber cab– or
anything else on a Braintree powered site– you can now make a quick one click
purchase on any of its other sites."

I don't see any mention of this sharing of one-click payment info on
Braintree's site. Can anyone confirm this is really coming?

~~~
klynch
Yes, we do have a universal checkout product in the works with the Venmo team.
We’ll provide more details as we get further with the product but expect to
see more from us on this soon, and the Pando article captures the essence of
it. We want to take the seamless checkout experience that we’ve enabled for
companies like Uber, HotelTonight, Fab and thousands of others and make it
available across every merchant that uses Braintree and every consumer that
uses Venmo.

-Kristi from Braintree

~~~
tisme
One step away from a braintree wallet!

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programminggeek
This is a big win for Braintree as it opens up the door to a lot of great
opportunities they didn't have previously. For example, when starting up a new
idea, I never would go with Braintree simply because I wasn't guaranteed I'd
sell enough to be worth the monthly minimum. I'd rather take the no risk
approach and pay a higher fee per transaction.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who looked at Paypal, Amazon Payments, or Stripe
for that reason alone.

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daniel_levine
Loving the competition in the payments space. More innovation and companies
(developers in particular) win.

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mobweb
Reading about all these innovations in the payment market is great, but
unfortunately for most of us in Europe, PayPal is still the only option that
makes sense most of the time, unfortunately. :(

~~~
daniel_levine
Would love to hear some of the reasons for that. Lack of credit card usage?
rates? I'm curious and I bet companies in the space would love to hear some of
the reasons why.

~~~
wahdeh
Can't speak for Braintree, but generally US-launched financial services take
some time to expand internationally for two reasons: 1) tons of compliance and
regulation unique to each country, and 2) having to interface with the
specific payment technologies in that country.

PayPal is one of the best international payment options because it's had more
time and money to throw at these problems than almost anyone else.

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davidandgoliath
Signed up & was told I'd be contacted in ~24 hours -- not much different from
my previous attempts signing up.

~~~
klynch
Most valid applicants will be approved instantly. There are some
circumstances, such as the specifics of your business model, that may require
a brief manual review. At most this will take 1 business day, but many reviews
will be much quicker - as fast as 20 or 30 minutes.

The difference between Braintree and others is that when we say yes, we mean
it. That means your business is good to go from day one and you won’t have to
worry about paypal-like shut downs.

Kristi from Braintree

~~~
jkaljundi
20-30 min also for all the international countries?

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jkaljundi
Their sign up form seems to be only for the US, so is the instant underwriting
news absolutely correct or is the instant thing for only one of the 200
countries in the world?

At least just a few days ago the international forms and documentation they
asked for to sign up was miles long.

~~~
klynch
@jkalkundi - Kristi from Braintree here.

Currently, the instant underwriting process is only available to our US based
merchants. We've made underwriting for merchants outside the US easier than
many of the current international alternatives. But we’re still working hard
to make sign-up instantaneous for merchants based outside the US and expect to
be there soon. As you probably already know, international banks can often be
much more risk averse.

~~~
mamcx
Also, any plans for latin-america (I'm from Colombia). Paypal open here and
then close, and I can't get out the money (except buying stuff). Now I'm with
fastspring but wish to have options...

~~~
klynch
We're working on it, but no timeline. You can sign up to be notified when we
become available in Latin America here:
<https://www.braintreepayments.com/tour/international>

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tzs
I don't understand how instant underwriting works. I thought the the reason it
normally takes a while to get set up to take credit cards is because your
merchant account provider is liable to the credit card providers for
chargebacks, even if they can no longer collect that money from you because
you went under months before.

Who assumes the risk for chargebacks in the instant underwriting scenario? How
does that party control their risk?

~~~
klynch
Kristi from Braintree here.

We wrote our own underwriting software that connects our online signup process
with years of data and experience underwriting tech companies. That
combination of better software, years of data and more experience with tech
companies makes us way more efficient than traditional payment providers.

As for who assumes the risk: the merchant is responsible for chargebacks
first. If the merchant fails to cover those chargebacks, the risk then
typically sits with the payment provider. If the payment provider is not able
to cover the risk, the bank then stands behind the payment provider.

~~~
BallinBige
pretty sure you are just an aggregator. Visa & MC are making this more
'feasible'

~~~
klynch
Kristi from Braintree again.

All of our merchants get their own merchant account during our onboarding
process.

Admittedly, it's a complex process behind the scenes. We know that a lot of
people are interested in how we do this, and we want to be completely
transparent about our business practices. We plan on putting out a blog post
explaining it all in detail in the coming weeks.

You can subscribe to our RSS feed at <http://feeds.feedburner.com/braintree>
for updates.

~~~
tzs
I've tried on occasion to figure out all the players involved in processing a
payment, and their relationships and responsibilities. It is complicated
because (1) so many companies offer multiple services (gateway, merchant
account, etc) and their documentation blurs the distinction, and (2) some
companies use different names for the same thing.

Here was my best attempt: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2445866>

If your blog post could cover all the components I tried to cover there--but
without the errors I probably made and with the gaps filled, I and many others
would be grateful and ecstatic.

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zakshay
I'm not sure if this is comparable to Stripe's signup process.

I just tried signing up from: <https://apply.braintreegateway.com/>

At the end of it, my application for queued to be manually reviewed (~24 hrs)
by an underwriter. Am I missing something here ?

~~~
zakshay
UPDATE: My application was approved within 30 minutes.

~~~
klynch
That's great! Not sure if you saw this answer to @davidandgoliath where I
elaborate a little more on our process:

Most applicants will be approved instantly. There are some circumstances, such
as the specifics of your business model, that may require a brief manual
review. At most this will take 1 business day, but many reviews will be much
quicker - as fast as 20 or 30 minutes.

The difference between Braintree and others is that when we say yes, we mean
it. That means your business is good to go from day one and you won’t have to
worry about paypal-like shut downs.

Kristi, Braintree

