Not at all. There are other solutions around the world that bypass the payment gateways and credit card acquirers. In Holland they have iDEAL, in Thailand they have QR Codes, in Australia they have BPAY and in China they have WeChat Pay. There are tons more around the world. As a merchant, it can be very expensive integrating directly with all the different options, which is where these companies help - for a fee. If…
Do those services also deal with fraud, chargebacks, etc., or are they basically digital cash equivalents?
Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?
31–40 of 377 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?
#32You've lumped together companies that do very different things. I would just google "payment card network" and you can spend days going down rabbit holes to understand how complex the system is. And yes it is all totally necessary: https://www.spreedly.com/blog/card-processing-network "Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and AmEx also form the PCI Security Standards Council (SSC) alongside Japan’s JCB International. The PCI…
> And yes it is all totally necessary Highlighting because it's important. We recently got a totally free and open payments system, probably hundreds of them in fact, and they're a disaster. All the inequity and risk that any money system inherently possesses, with zero protections for anyone involved and zero recourse if you're robbed blind, unless of course you're wealthy in which case the people actually in charge…
Man. That whole turn-of-the-2020s, peak-COVID period seems like such a collective fever dream in retrospect.
Re: Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?
#33I don't see why they should get to shave a slice off of every transaction. It takes relatively little upkeep and they rake in huge profits.
The fees nudge businesses to use cash (well, to avoid tax too, sometimes.) or set a minimum transaction amount, which can mean fewer customers through the door.
I think a new, public infrastructure competitor could be healthy for economies worldwide.
Re: Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do those services also deal with fraud, chargebacks, etc., or are they basically digital cash equivalents?
iDEAL in the Netherlands is an instant credit from your account directly into the receivers. The KYC part has already been handled by your bank.
Re: Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?
#35Re: Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?
#36Re: Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?
#37Not at all. There are other solutions around the world that bypass the payment gateways and credit card acquirers. In Holland they have iDEAL, in Thailand they have QR Codes, in Australia they have BPAY and in China they have WeChat Pay. There are tons more around the world. As a merchant, it can be very expensive integrating directly with all the different options, which is where these companies help - for a fee. If…
Do those services also deal with fraud, chargebacks, etc., or are they basically digital cash equivalents?
Or maybe it's just me but I greatly prefer the non-algorithmic non-pay-on-credit mechanism where I simply pay for my purchase and the other party has no reason not to take my money (and the bank no reason not to issue the payment method to everyone: as an EU foreigner in Germany without pre-existing German credit score, getting a card at all was a pain, no matter if I could guarantee it with some insane deposit amount... I have the money, they just didn't want to issue a number to pay with because of algorithm magic). Now that I got that card number by co-guaranteeing with a German, purchases often fail like when I use mobile data which is from a Dutch phone number and so it looks foreign and I guess smells like non-standard situation → must be fraud, let's deny the purchase
Digital replacements for cash, like the aforementioned iDeal system, just always works and is available to everyone with a bank account in the Netherlands (iirc they're looking to start using it EU-wide because the costs are so low). No need to pre-pay either (like with paypal credit) because it just draws from your regular account. Another advantage is that it is owned by the banks collectively so you're not giving a ton of information to a third party, like most German-native payment options requiring to verify a phone number before you're allowed to pay the merchant for absolutely no reason other than tracking
Re: Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?
#38Not at all. There are other solutions around the world that bypass the payment gateways and credit card acquirers. In Holland they have iDEAL, in Thailand they have QR Codes, in Australia they have BPAY and in China they have WeChat Pay. There are tons more around the world. As a merchant, it can be very expensive integrating directly with all the different options, which is where these companies help - for a fee. If…
Do those services also deal with fraud, chargebacks, etc., or are they basically digital cash equivalents?
Re: Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?
#39Stripe, Block, and PayPal each solved a massive pain point. PayPal provided a way to pay people and vendors without giving away your credit card number. Square made it easy to accept payment in person on a phone, without an extensive upfront underwriting experience and without expensive fixed monthly fees. Stripe did the same as Square, but for accepting online payments. Fraud and Risk come in many forms, and these p…
For a 3% discount, would customers agree to use something that worked just like cash, where the transfer was instant and couldn't be undone? Then you don't have to worry about fraud, chargebacks, etc.
Re: Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?
#40Stripe, Block, and PayPal each solved a massive pain point. PayPal provided a way to pay people and vendors without giving away your credit card number. Square made it easy to accept payment in person on a phone, without an extensive upfront underwriting experience and without expensive fixed monthly fees. Stripe did the same as Square, but for accepting online payments. Fraud and Risk come in many forms, and these p…
The challenger to these will solve for a different problem. Not every transaction needs complex fraud detection or being able for the customer do to chargebacks. For a 3% discount, would customers agree to use something that worked just like cash, where the transfer was instant and couldn't be undone? Then you don't have to worry about fraud, chargebacks, etc.