Stripe Treasury • Hacker News Board

Re: Stripe Treasury

#121

Post by tener » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 6:42 PM UTC

waffle_ss wrote: post #83

senoroink wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was the business? Stripe's not really making the rules here, it's the financial partners backing them. Just because something is "legal" doesn't mean it's not risky. As an easy example, from the page you linked, "psychic services" are banned.

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.

Things which aren't risky on some level just don't get regulated. There is a ton of risk involved in pharmacies.

Re: Stripe Treasury

#122

Post by joshuakelly » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 6:42 PM UTC

anon589 wrote: post #63

joshuakelly wrote: post #43

There's a reason "marketplaces" get a call out on this landing page. Every single startup that has to manage buyers and sellers ends up needing to implement their own bespoke "treasury" operations. There are other players in this space (Modern Treasury for example), but obviously the distinct Stripe advantage is integrating with the payment stack. This would have saved years of development efforts and maintenance on…

Outsourcing KYC is a questionable decision though - I’m wondering how much of a black box that is or you get the same info as if you implemented it yourself. There’s always false negatives for systems like this, and if Stripe wrongly tells you someone is good then are you liable for acting on that decision?

I can't speak specifically to the liability question since I don't want to provide any inaccurate information.

To the false negatives problem itself though, I think your implicit assumption is the correct one - that false negatives are a bigger potential problem than false positives. In my experience, the false positive rate on declines was immaterial to the business. The impact of a false negative is definitely a different question.

Re: Stripe Treasury

#123

Post by shreygupta » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

bastawhiz wrote: post #105

shreygupta wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Tara! First off, I've never posted on HN before, but I felt so obligated to write this because this solves so many of the challenges my team has been going through building our application. I'm wondering if students under 18 are permitted under the TOS? I can see how this product will change the open banking game and fill so many gaps in. Thank you for building this!

If you sign up for Stripe and you're under 18, you'll be required to have a person 18 years or older register as the business representative for your account (usually a parent or guardian). Depending on your country, the age requirement may vary. If you're under 13, you are not allowed to use Stripe at all regardless of what country you're in.

Right, of course.

Re: Stripe Treasury

#124

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #117

an_opabinia wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If my rideshare platform also lends or leases vehicles to its drivers, would Stripe Treasury permit the drivers to repay the loan or lease via the driver's treasury account where they get paid? Does regular Stripe support paying back loans or leases? When I say permit, I mean from an acceptable use point of view, not an engineering point of view.

I know of no reason we'd not support the first, though feel free to run that by us formally if you want explicit permission in writing (which presumably a rideshare platform large enough to have a leasing operation would). We don't support using Payments to collect loan repayments in most cases.

[deleted]

Re: Stripe Treasury

#125

Post by tempsy » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 6:44 PM UTC

_alex_ wrote: post #109

weego wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outsourcing KYC is essential if you want preventative measures. Having your own just allows you to learn from getting stung.

So much this. I would have zero interest in building out kyc vs having stripe do it for me

It’s a question of defensibility if some regulator came to you and asked why you allowed certain individuals through because a black box told you without any additional context.

And I don’t think anyone builds their own KYC from ground up - it’s more whether you have context for a decision with your own vendor implementation vs a black box yes or no.

Re: Stripe Treasury

#126

Post by joshuakelly » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 6:45 PM UTC

radihuq wrote: post #113

jjeaff wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like that would be more inline with the stripe connect platform.

Today, yes, but I think in the long run a platform that implements something like Stripe Treasury has the opportunity to provide a ton of value for bottom-market event planners (think: those people that run 10 person workshops out of a community center)

It's also true at the high end. Business decisions around key service providers in the AAA+ live events space are driven primarily by access to what effectively are financial services (advances and other lifecycle events, and in general the ability of your counter party to act as an underwriter). Access to quasi-financial services are the key differentiator at the top of the market.

This will be especially true looking forward to the post-COVID relaunch of tours and festivals.

Re: Stripe Treasury

#127

Post by rattray » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 6:49 PM UTC

Bit of an aside, but as a new entrepreneur selling physical products (https://narwallmask.com) I've been surprised by how much time I spend banking.

Moving money around is way more of a headache than I would have anticipated. And that's before you even get into questions of working capital etc.

As a former eng at Stripe who didn't know this product was coming, I'm very excited to see what gets built on top of it, and to see innovation spurred in business fintech in general.

Re: Stripe Treasury

#128

Post by vincentmarle » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 6:50 PM UTC

patio11 wrote: post #91

senko wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Suppose a driver for a rideshare app wants to pay their car payment. Stripe Connect can't be used to hold funds from many rides for a month; they have to pay it out to a bank account (which they might not have) or to a disbursement card, which (because loan repayments are generally not paid on a card in the U.S.) likely doesn't solve their problem without withdrawing cash and buying a money order. That is extra effor…

> This is good for the platform

Just curious, who gets paid the interest on these accounts?

Re: Stripe Treasury

#129

Post by lambda_obrien » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

closeparen wrote: post #112

bavell wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be way easier and better for the driver to just open a bank account? Why would they want to tie something as important as making car payments to their ephemeral gig work?

Many people don’t want or cannot get real bank accounts, e.g. because they can’t sustain the minimum balance, have been blacklisted for bouncing checks, or it just isn’t the norm in their community.

It's kind of a slippery slope to start letting employers hold pay in an account they control... reminds me of the union busting articles on the top right now, with Facebook building employee housing now, the idea you brought up is the next step towards the "Facebook Store" and scrips.

I understand some people have trouble banking, but the answer should then be for us to ensure they can have equal access to banking, no matter what.

Re: Stripe Treasury

#130

Post by pbalau » Thu, Dec 03, 2020, 6:53 PM UTC

smallnamespace wrote: post #108

pbalau wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stripe Treasury does not violate our terms, and allows SaaS platforms (and similar) to provide their business users with access to capabilities which are regulated with those capabilities fulfilled by entities with the appropriate licensing and backed by our financial partners. Ha? What does this mean?

I read it as: > ... provide their business users with access to capabilities which are regulated _,_ with those capabilities fulfilled by entities with the appropriate licensing ... Short version: we do the hard things for you so you don't have to. Correction welcome if that comma doesn't convey the intended meaning.

The comma I got on my own, after some time. I'm still not clear on what those capabilities are.