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MasterCard's Simplify Commerce

simplify.com

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Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce

#61

Post by diggan »

sleepyhead wrote: post #23
diggan wrote: post #20

As usual, there is no information at all on which countries that is supported, I guess this is only supported in USA. Maybe I'm the only one outside of America... Edit: Yeah, after registering, confirming my email and trying to apply for a full account, I know that it's only for America. Sigh...

"At this time, however, the merchant must be a U.S. business." https://simplify.desk.com/customer/portal/articles/1173591-s...

Cool, in Support -> Home -> General, couldn't be more visible. Tried searching for "country" in the support-area, no hits, no more time spent searching.

Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce

#62

Post by dmix »

antr wrote: post #60
pc wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I built the first version of Stripe and work here.) I think the unfortunate aspect of these clones is that they're lazy. I have huge respect for anyone that innovates in payments -- I know how hard it is, and I'd imagine it's even harder to do that as part of a larger company. What I find disappointing is when a product copies everything about Stripe -- everything from Stripe.js to the "live/test" switch to the "1/2…

The SV expectation/mentality that if someone builds something first they "own" that space is unjustifiable. I'm not say you are saying that, but it is an implicit attitude in the Valley. Competition (or "clones") were around 100 years ago, continue to exist today and will be around for the next 100 years. Today's innovation is tomorrow's commodity thanks to competition. This is good. Is it disappointing that MasterCa…

Calling it "lazy" was fair given the points he made. He's not talking about copying products, he's talking about copying the product AND all the little UI/UX details. That really is lazy.

Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce

#63

Post by zt »

I find this to be a really interesting business decision for MasterCard. MasterCard cannot offer this service directly on their information systems because of there own rules and the antitrust consent decree.

So what have they done? They've built a wrapper around Priority Payments Services, an independent sales organization of Wells Fargo. (For reference, Stripe is also an ISO of Wells Fargo Merchant Services).

Which is all a long way of saying that MasterCard went pretty far out of there way to build this system. They must really see value in selling directly to merchant developers.

There is another possible story here: maybe the ISO wanted to compete with Stripe, they built the system and site, and asked MasterCard for their branding.

Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce

#64

Post by jakub_g »

pc wrote: post #32
white_devil wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PLEASE tell the world why it's so damn difficult to let non-US businesses use a payment service? We're dying to know. Is it because of bullshit regulations everywhere? Why has it taken you forever to set up shop in a couple of places in Europe? Why not the rest too? Seriously. What is it?

It's a combination things. - Legally, we need to be able to verify identities. We want to do this frictionlessly and in real-time rather than with some paperwork sheaf that gets mailed to you a week later. The solution looks different in almost every country. - Visa, MasterCard, and co. have rules that effectively prevent you from using the same backends in different areas. (E.g., you can't use the same backend in Eu…

What about SEPA [1]? Didn't it simplify things enough? E.g. I can make bank transfers between EUR accounts from France to Poland (which is not in eurozone BTW) within a few hours (during the week) with a total cost ~€1 which is quite acceptable (of course not for €5 transfers, but the cost is fixed, so it's good enough for bigger transfers).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Euro_Payments_Area

Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce

#65

Post by rudros »

joshrice wrote: post #50
rudros wrote: post #39

Check out https://www.simplify.com// (the double slash ending is important).

What was there? Just getting a 404...or is that your point?

Ahhh, they shut it down already. It was a page with links to login to their JBOSS admin pages and such. You needed passwords, of course, but still, not the sort of thing you want clients to randomly stumble across.

Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce

#66

Post by foobarqux »

zt wrote: post #63

I find this to be a really interesting business decision for MasterCard. MasterCard cannot offer this service directly on their information systems because of there own rules and the antitrust consent decree. So what have they done? They've built a wrapper around Priority Payments Services, an independent sales organization of Wells Fargo. (For reference, Stripe is also an ISO of Wells Fargo Merchant Services). Which…

Mastercard can see almost exactly how much Stripe is growing, I don't think they needed to be very perceptive in "seeing value in selling directly to merchant developers".

Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce

#67

Post by presidentender »

pc wrote: post #19
greghinch wrote: post #16

To play diplomat, I see a lot of Stripe loyalty / Mastercard hate already brewing here, and I think that's a bit unwarranted. Stripe has certainly earned their place as a cherished service, but I would venture to bet a lot of devs worked quite hard on Simplify as well, so it'd be nice to see discussion on the merits of the offering rather than preconceived notions of the provider. If nothing else, even if 0.05% isn't…

(I built the first version of Stripe and work here.) I think the unfortunate aspect of these clones is that they're lazy. I have huge respect for anyone that innovates in payments -- I know how hard it is, and I'd imagine it's even harder to do that as part of a larger company. What I find disappointing is when a product copies everything about Stripe -- everything from Stripe.js to the "live/test" switch to the "1/2…

Stripe's terms of use prohibit both weapons and virtual currencies. If Simplify's terms of service prohibit either, I can't find the relevant paragraph. That alone makes Simplify somewhat more attractive.

Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce

#69

Post by ericd »

CoachRufus87 wrote: post #58
pvnick wrote: post #12

I wouldn't trust anything that comes from Mastercard or Visa directly. I would much rather have the companies' idiosyncrasies and politics abstracted through a 3rd-party service like stripe or balanced. That's just my kneejerk reaction, take it or leave it.

Why not? Millions trust them with one their most important assets: cash.

On the merchant side, the picture is a lot less friendly than the consumer side. With a traditional merchant account, there is basically a march of monotonically increasing fees here and there that add up, and are only brought back down a bit when someone wins against them in court.

Re: MasterCard's Simplify Commerce

#70

Post by nazka »

pc wrote: post #19
greghinch wrote: post #16

To play diplomat, I see a lot of Stripe loyalty / Mastercard hate already brewing here, and I think that's a bit unwarranted. Stripe has certainly earned their place as a cherished service, but I would venture to bet a lot of devs worked quite hard on Simplify as well, so it'd be nice to see discussion on the merits of the offering rather than preconceived notions of the provider. If nothing else, even if 0.05% isn't…

(I built the first version of Stripe and work here.) I think the unfortunate aspect of these clones is that they're lazy. I have huge respect for anyone that innovates in payments -- I know how hard it is, and I'd imagine it's even harder to do that as part of a larger company. What I find disappointing is when a product copies everything about Stripe -- everything from Stripe.js to the "live/test" switch to the "1/2…

It is something I don't understand... It's not possible to patent/copyright the whole design of website to see it as a whole product? And avoid people to do exactly the same design?
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