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Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?

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Re: Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?

#231

Post by FireBeyond »

CyanLite4 wrote: post #221
Nextgrid wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think standard oAuth. Github has multiple flows that should cover most purposes here: https://docs.github.com/en/apps/oauth-apps/building-oauth-ap... . The key is that payment data is encoded in oAuth-like scopes, so all authorizations are scoped by amount and lifetime, and are implicitly merchant-specific. Browser-based flow, where you're already logged into the bank in an existing browser tab: * Amazon redirects yo…

This is no different than chip+pin for physical purchases. There are still other major areas of fraud that has to be addressed. It doesn’t cover credit risk-even on a debit card, there can be a “hold” period of an arbitrary amount before the final transaction clears. When you swipe a card at a gas station, they often run a $50 authorization hold on your account. It also doesn’t cover merchant fraud—- Visa/MC covers y…

> When you swipe a card at a gas station, they often run a $50 authorization hold on your account.

Safeway gas stations upgraded their pumps to have tap-to-pay.

But with increasing gas prices (and not getting into that), they upped the auth hold to up to $125.

Except many card issuers limit contactless payments to $100... rendering tap to pay useless on the pump because it'll deny the preauth and require chip insertion.

Re: Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?

#232

Post by aguaviva »

deepsun wrote: post #191
aguaviva wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their tech is years ahead of US. Can you elaborate? (Am new to the topic, so your perspective would be appreciated).

Hard to pick up one thing among multiple. For example, transfers between accounts are instantaneous, not 2-5 days for ACH (Wire transfers are same-day, but expensive). Electronic menus/payments in cafes are default for at least 3 years now (US has toasttab.com but it's far from being default). If you have a small business account, taxes are paid in one click (app shows you tax to be paid with Confirm button). PS: The…

Good to know, thanks.

Re: Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?

#233

Post by Muromec »

rafram wrote: post #216
immibis wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often make medium-to-large purchases using SEPA bank transfer. The merchant gives me a bank account number, a random or serialized reference code, and a week to make payment. I go to my bank, and send the money to the bank account, inputting the same reference code. Once it arrives (usually within the day or the next morning) the thing is paid. This works for most online purchases that are not urgent and support th…

That’s fair, but paying by credit card lets you: - Keep the money in the bank (and earn interest on it) for another month or so - Contest fraudulent charges or payments for goods or services that are never delivered - Earn travel rewards (I know, those have systemic downsides) - Pay any business in essentially any country in any currency with no fee for you and a low fee for the business

SEPA has no fees and doesn’t care about currencies either. It’s EU only however.

Re: Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?

#234

Post by Muromec »

holowoodman wrote: post #185
immibis wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often make medium-to-large purchases using SEPA bank transfer. The merchant gives me a bank account number, a random or serialized reference code, and a week to make payment. I go to my bank, and send the money to the bank account, inputting the same reference code. Once it arrives (usually within the day or the next morning) the thing is paid. This works for most online purchases that are not urgent and support th…

The things that are still missing to make this perfect: - SEPA instant transfers (exist, but cost extra) - A consistent (across all banks) API to poll for received payments for the merchant - A consistent API (e.g. an URL schema that browsers do support) to quickly fill in payment details with your bank's transfer form.

Dutch iDeal will be rolled out continent wide pretty soon ( soon in bank time ), which is what you want.

Last time I checked instant sepa (which was today) it was free as in zero commissions on either side and was actually instant.

Re: Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?

#235

Post by jongjong »

oldprogrammer2 wrote: post #9

Stripe, 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…

I find it weird how fraud protection is used to justify why these companies are so popular because fraud is not something that most consumers care about up front, most people only start caring when it happens to them. Most tend to assume that every tool they use is secure by default. "This product is not insecure" is not a very compelling selling point IMO.

It's actually difficult to justify Stripe's popularity aside from media monopolization preventing alternatives from gaining mindshare. Everyone knows Stripe but many don't know about the existence of alternatives.

Re: Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?

#236

Post by Muromec »

aguaviva wrote: post #177
deepsun wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same thing in Ukraine. And it's not because they face less fraud attempts, it's just their tech is years ahead of US.

Their tech is years ahead of US. Can you elaborate? (Am new to the topic, so your perspective would be appreciated).

Let’s just say I get an iPhone notification when the court case in which I’m a party had a hearing sceduled.

And if I want to write a petition in this case, I log into the web portal, write it down, click send and blink into the app twice to Electronically sign it.

Which produces your normal CMS ( pkcs#7 ) signature on a pdf file.

It’s also not a special court app for a specific locality, but a nation wide government app.

Wr also don’t write damn cheques and never did, as it’s bullshit. You want to somebody —- you get their card number, open the bank app and tap send.

Re: Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?

#237

Post by peteforde »

martinald wrote: post #186
Nextgrid wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The page is light on details, but is it scoped and merchant/amount/time limited? Because if not, it’s yet another “hack” that merely reduces one specific type of fraud (when a card number is leaked) without fully addressing the problem, so the need for chargeback arbitration (and thus associated costs) persists.

In a word yes. You'll still get a lot of chargebacks by the way. With a lot of ecomm I've been involved with the fraud you are talking about is actually a small part of chargeback volume. Most is unhappy or demanding customers, or another type of low level fraud, claiming goods didn't arrive despite a photo of the person literally accepting them from the delivery company. This is absolutely rampant in b2c with smalle…

The alarming rise in the incident rate of inappropriate chargebacks ("my fries were cold") really pisses me off as a sane user of contemporary credit card infrastructure. That is, I think of chargebacks as an absolute last resort; essentially a bulwark/ombudsman to protect me from bad actors. It should be used incredibly conservatively, and it should have significant reprocussions if it is used inappropriately; sort of like steep fines for hitting the emergency strip on a subway because someone wont move their backpack.

If chargebacks go away and aren't replaced by something at least as effective, that means that we're losing one of the most significant advantages intrinsic to the payment mechanism: peace of mind.

Re: Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?

#239

Post by FireBeyond »

solardev wrote: post #60
Aachen wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never needed any of these things in the EEA When I wasn't happy with a product, I either used the warranty or (mandatory) 14-day return option depending on the reason why the product wasn't conforming expectations Perhaps warranty extras are more relevant outside of the EU where warranty laws may be less strict? How even does a payment system do warranty, it knows nothing of the product? And what is price protectio…

I have a longer reply in a sibling post ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41276479 ), but basically, yeah... in the US we have very few consumer protections, so credit cards offer some of that in lieu of a functional government. They also have much better protections against fraud (if someone steals your credit card and buys something with it, you're not liable... the bank will pay you back). If you get scammed…

> in the US we have very few consumer protections

> If you get scammed with a cash-equivalent (like our Zelle

Fun fact: shifting a significant chunk of liability for fraud away from banks and onto consumers was in fact one of the design goals of Zelle for the banks.

Re: Ask HN: Do we need to pay billions in fees to Stripe, Block, PayPal and Visa/MC?

#240

Post by dmalik »

leobg wrote: post #164

Just imagine how different the Internet would look like today if receiving payments would’ve been as easy as receiving email from the beginning. That it is not trivial for a single person on the Internet to receive payments without a third-party involved, in my mind, leads directly to an Internet that is based on ads and on monopolies: You can’t make a living posting stuff online on your own private website. Because…

In Canada we've had email money transfer since 2003. It used to cost $1 if you had a different bank then the person you were sending to but now it's free. Generally only good for friends and marketplace items though. Can't use it for ecommerce.
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