Stripe Treasury

It is—the businesses we’re not able to work with are mostly restricted by the financial partners and banks that Stripe works with. But we do want to support as many business types as possible—and for Atlas in particular, we’ve recently been able to support many more. (For example, we fully support telemedicine companies now.) Would you be able to email me at edwin@stripe.com? I’d like to take a second look at that rejection.

Pharmacies exchanging prescription drugs. Regulated, not risky - don't confound the two.

And there are no "rules" restricting these transactions over the ACH network, Stripe is applying the widest scope of restrictions gathered from across of its partners, which include the credit card processors.

And I was asking this question to the Stripe PM, not some uninformed white knight.

> Clearbanc, a financial services company, uses multiple Stripe products

If Clearbanc tried to use a Stripe product today, it obviously uses the words "investor" and "Fund me" on its landing pages, "democratize access to capital," - so it sounds like crowdfunding, even though I know Clearbanc's business isn't. Your contractor compliance team would say no, but a Stripe W2, who is equipped for this kind of nuance, would say yes.

However: "We provide the capital to grow and, in return, are paid a percentage of revenue until we are paid back plus a small 6% - 12% fee... no dilution, no board seats" is clearly describing a loan. Here's a link (1) to an SEC filing where in plain language a Clearbanc loan recipient describes receiving a "loan" from Clearbanc. So it's clearly a "lending instruments" and credit service, in violation of your AUP, no doubt about it, you even use the word lending instrument to provide the flexibility to account for this sort of stuff. And here, a contractor would not be able to figure out what I just did - they'd say, "oh their landing page is not using the word loan, which is a keyword in my script" - but a W2 would!

I get it, you want to have it both ways, I get that reality is just, "It is case by case, and in reality, we decide for (1) totally random reasons, like whether or not you are reviewed by a contractor or an educated W2, and (2) the cut of your jib." Maybe you guys permit loans in Stripe Connect.

Maybe these Clearbanc guys really did invoke some kind of magic, by not using the word loan but instead using the word advance and fees, even though their own Fast Company article says loan and the recipients (correctly) account for and legally define the money they received from Clearbanc as a loan. I don't know. It's actually really surprising and I'm trying to cut to the core of the AUP question and why it generates so many problems for you guys.

Is your real takeaway: "Oh, I can't say specific companies." I believe this is wrong! I think you should not be afraid to say Clearbanc, and then find out they make loans, and you should be able to just say, "No to AngelList and no to TransferWise." It's not that big of a deal that Clearbanc makes loans, which is against your AUP, you can work with whomever you want! Which is really what I'm getting at, which is to facilitate a conversation, something between educated people who aren't trying to gotcha each other, that is what we're having, about what the potential of the platform is - not a situation where, oh man, what do I put into this "What do you want to build with Stripe Treasury" box on the invite form? Because if I put in the wrong keywords, I am shut out from something really useful to me, not because I am doing something weird and want to skirt compliance, but because it is free.

(1) https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001700895/000114420... "During 2018, the Company entered into several loan agreements with Clearbanc in the amount of $670,443, bearing interest ranging from 9.25% to 15%. Interest expense on these loans totaled $26,560 for the year ended December 31, 2018. The unpaid principal balance was $291,214 as of December 31, 2018."

I'm not reading it as criticism.

Considering Stripe forbids financial services in their t&c's, and this allows Stripe users to implement financial services, the question is, what kind of financial services are now allowed?

Would be great to hear a few use cases for Treasury that can't be done with existing Connect platform (and which fall within t&c's).

Genuinely curious.

We are extremely in favor of making financial services available to more people in more places at lower cost and with less arbitrary restrictions. That said, we won’t be able to solve this problem singlehandedly in a day; Stripe Treasury is presently only for businesses serving businesses. As an infrastructure provider, we are also reliant on our users building the platforms their communities need.

Fees matter for businesses too, though. Many small business owners are greatly inconvenienced by e.g. the $X,000 minimum to avoid a $15-25 monthly maintenance fee. By bringing large global banks a great deal of deposits at once, we’ve convinced them to not impose maintenance fees on the end-users of these accounts; they’re willing to send the money they’re not spending on customer acquisition (advertising, branch networks, sales reps, etc) back to Main Street.

Another thing scale allows us to do is advocate for our users with financial partners. For example, earlier this year we successfully convinced the relevant parties to approve processing payments for telemedicine companies, which was previously not something they were comfortable with. That is something that previously each company would have had to individually negotiate, and e.g. startups in the space or individual medical practices might not have had sufficient reputations with their financial institutions to cause major changes in their appetite. We were able to get it through by emphasizing how our scale, maturity, and robust compliance program allowed us to allay their concerns.