As they're a subsidiary of PayPal, it really would require extraordinary evidence to convince me that Braintree doesn't suck. Sadly, no such evidence was offered in the linked post.
...Despite the overwhelming evidence for the contrary (see pycon)?
How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia
41–50 of 158 posts
Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Different regulations regarding money transmitting businesses in different countries. Different countries require different paperwork from money transmitters, and you have tomcomplain with it. If you could just follow your country's red tape, all the money transmitters would just operate from an unregulated tax heaven...
This sounds like the Paypal stories all over again. Oh wait, Paypal acquired Braintree.
Not really...the regulations has always been there.
Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia
#43So you guys relied on a single payment provider? And you chose a PayPal company to rely on? Well of course your accounts would be frozen someday. It's a PayPal company. Seriously what did you expect?
I'd expect that most companies rely on one payment provider, at least in the early days. The cost of implementing, testing, etc. multiple providers is pretty high. I have only switched providers twice in the decade long life of my company, and only due to extreme pain from the previous one. It takes a lot to get me to sign on for the pain of a migration, and that's even more pronounced now that so much data ends up s…
True, but this is a known problem with certain payment processors. Going under because a PayPal subsidiary screwed you is management (and investors who failed to do adequate due diligence) screwing up.
Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would have been true if there were not so many networks (SWIFT, VISA, MasterCard, Paypal, Braintree, Google Wallet, Apple Pay, ...). Judging by the increasing number of networks It can only be concluded that its not so hard. Only non profit can put stop to this mess.
All of those networks you just mentioned rely on banking infrastructure.
True. My point was that profit motivation of banks should not be an issue.
Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia
#45So you guys relied on a single payment provider? And you chose a PayPal company to rely on? Well of course your accounts would be frozen someday. It's a PayPal company. Seriously what did you expect?
Nowadays, I highly recommend integrating with a tokenization provider, instead of with a payment provider directly. Payment processing is a commodity, and if your provider isn't fulfilling, switching is much easier. I've used Spreedly in the past.
Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd expect that most companies rely on one payment provider, at least in the early days. The cost of implementing, testing, etc. multiple providers is pretty high. I have only switched providers twice in the decade long life of my company, and only due to extreme pain from the previous one. It takes a lot to get me to sign on for the pain of a migration, and that's even more pronounced now that so much data ends up s…
Of course it is painful to implement a seconds provider for backup, but payments are their lifeline. And PayPal has a track record for stuff like that. Never rely your whole business on PayPal!
I saw a talk at the MRC conference by the woman who heads up payments for Facebook. They put a bunch of development effort into a tool that allows them to switch providers at will for exactly this reason. It not only gives them security, it allows them to seamlessly direct traffic to whomever is providing the best rates at any given time.
Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia
#47Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia
#48The post rambles for a long time and slings some mud against braintree. Their claim is that they couldn't do a wire transfer from their merchant account to their business account. Looking on braintree's website they don't appear to support Serbia. https://www.braintreepayments.com/en-si/country-selection?re...
Apparently Serbia is 'supported' although to what degree is unknown. Specifically, the dinar is supported. https://developers.braintreepayments.com/reference/general/c...
What you linked to is a list of countries for the address of the purchaser. It's possible for a payment processor to only accept merchants in the US, for example, while allowing that US merchant to accept purchases from any country in the world.
Re: How Braintree destroyed a successful taxi startup from Serbia
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
All of those networks you just mentioned rely on banking infrastructure.
True. My point was that profit motivation of banks should not be an issue.
It is an issue since that very motivation backs the regulation that makes the type of disruption you're visioning extremely difficult.