Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

WePay (YC S09) Launches WePay Clear, a Stripe Competitor with Fraud Protection

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 28 posts

Re: WePay (YC S09) Launches WePay Clear, a Stripe Competitor with Fraud Protection

#11

Post by scottefein12 »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #10

Fraud protection is an odd marketing angle. The merchant bank is the one that gets hosed due to fraud, so anti fraud technology helps Stripe, Paypal, WePay, etc. WePay is marketing that they are very good at not screwing themselves. There are clients that care about anti-fraud, such as ecommerce companies that ship high value electronics, but WePay has no experience in this category. The crowd funding space has fraud…

As Bill makes clear-WePay Clear isn't about fraud protection-we've always been managing risk. It's offering fraud protection, risk mitigation with a white label payments platform-that's a first in payments.

WePay specializes in two-sided applications-where you have buyers and sellers and you're moving money between them. There's a lot more to fraud than a bad credit card. See my other post RE: fraud.

Re: WePay (YC S09) Launches WePay Clear, a Stripe Competitor with Fraud Protection

#12

Post by thedangler »

billclerico wrote: post #9
gotothrowaway wrote: post #5

My understanding is that stripe has always done some level of fraud protection (e.g. Monitoring to ensure someone isn't incrementing through card numbers to find one that works) This seems like a necessary component of any "effective acquiring bank"[1] because of where the liability falls. In the event of fraud, Stripe can get hosed and they need to protect themselves. I imagine they wouldn't have taken the step of l…

Bill from WePay here - thanks for asking. The value proposition of WePay Clear isn't entirely captured in TechCrunch's choice of a headline, though they certainly have sensationalized it by drawing a Stripe comparison. Yes, WePay Clear takes on fraud responsibility & shields the platform. (as does Stripe Connect) However, WePay Clear does this in a whitelabel fashion, so that sellers on platforms do not need to creat…

"so that sellers on platforms do not need to create a WePay account" So then how does the seller get the money? Confused.

Re: WePay (YC S09) Launches WePay Clear, a Stripe Competitor with Fraud Protection

#13

Post by scottefein12 »

thedangler wrote: post #12
billclerico wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bill from WePay here - thanks for asking. The value proposition of WePay Clear isn't entirely captured in TechCrunch's choice of a headline, though they certainly have sensationalized it by drawing a Stripe comparison. Yes, WePay Clear takes on fraud responsibility & shields the platform. (as does Stripe Connect) However, WePay Clear does this in a whitelabel fashion, so that sellers on platforms do not need to creat…

"so that sellers on platforms do not need to create a WePay account" So then how does the seller get the money? Confused.

The platform creates one on their behalf, it's transparent to them.

Re: WePay (YC S09) Launches WePay Clear, a Stripe Competitor with Fraud Protection

#14

Post by volandovengo »

I find this hugely compelling. Fraud protection is a huge time sync for most e-commerce providers.

Bill - could you please explain some of the fine print? Are all chargebacks covered? Do you provide the ability to select which countries to accept payments from? Thanks so much!

Re: WePay (YC S09) Launches WePay Clear, a Stripe Competitor with Fraud Protection

#15

Post by jcampbell1 »

scottefein12 wrote: post #11
jcampbell1 wrote: post #10

Fraud protection is an odd marketing angle. The merchant bank is the one that gets hosed due to fraud, so anti fraud technology helps Stripe, Paypal, WePay, etc. WePay is marketing that they are very good at not screwing themselves. There are clients that care about anti-fraud, such as ecommerce companies that ship high value electronics, but WePay has no experience in this category. The crowd funding space has fraud…

As Bill makes clear-WePay Clear isn't about fraud protection-we've always been managing risk. It's offering fraud protection, risk mitigation with a white label payments platform-that's a first in payments. WePay specializes in two-sided applications-where you have buyers and sellers and you're moving money between them. There's a lot more to fraud than a bad credit card. See my other post RE: fraud.

I think I get it. I could build my own with Authorize.net, then I'd get screwed by fraud. I can go with PayPal, and get fraud protection, but my customers will be bombarded with stupid "Bill Me Later" bullshit, gateway pages and duplicated emails. I should choose WePay because I get fraud protection and white label.

Makes sense.

Re: WePay (YC S09) Launches WePay Clear, a Stripe Competitor with Fraud Protection

#16

Post by billclerico »

volandovengo wrote: post #14

I find this hugely compelling. Fraud protection is a huge time sync for most e-commerce providers. Bill - could you please explain some of the fine print? Are all chargebacks covered? Do you provide the ability to select which countries to accept payments from? Thanks so much!

Thanks! We believe that the payments are a commodity, but that good risk management is really valuable.

One important item to note - WePay Clear is built for platforms - services that connect buyers and sellers like online marketplaces, crowdfunding sites & SMB commerce tools. We shield them from fraud losses by underwriting the merchants directly, and taking the losses ourselves when we're wrong.

It is not built for standalone e-commerce merchants to protect them from fraud. We are exploring this for the future, however - you can imagine that a seller using one of our platform partners need protecting too.

You can accept payments from anywhere, as long as it's a Visa, Mastercard, American Express or Discover. Sellers must be based in the U.S. or Canada, though expanding the scope of this is our #1 company priority.

Re: WePay (YC S09) Launches WePay Clear, a Stripe Competitor with Fraud Protection

#17

Post by gotothrowaway »

billclerico wrote: post #9
gotothrowaway wrote: post #5

My understanding is that stripe has always done some level of fraud protection (e.g. Monitoring to ensure someone isn't incrementing through card numbers to find one that works) This seems like a necessary component of any "effective acquiring bank"[1] because of where the liability falls. In the event of fraud, Stripe can get hosed and they need to protect themselves. I imagine they wouldn't have taken the step of l…

Bill from WePay here - thanks for asking. The value proposition of WePay Clear isn't entirely captured in TechCrunch's choice of a headline, though they certainly have sensationalized it by drawing a Stripe comparison. Yes, WePay Clear takes on fraud responsibility & shields the platform. (as does Stripe Connect) However, WePay Clear does this in a whitelabel fashion, so that sellers on platforms do not need to creat…

Thanks Bill.

Is there anything about the fraud protection that's particularly noteworthy?

I thought Stripe Marketplaces addresses this use case, but perhaps the liability still falls on me (the developer) with Marketplaces?

Re: WePay (YC S09) Launches WePay Clear, a Stripe Competitor with Fraud Protection

#18

Post by billclerico »

gotothrowaway wrote: post #17
billclerico wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bill from WePay here - thanks for asking. The value proposition of WePay Clear isn't entirely captured in TechCrunch's choice of a headline, though they certainly have sensationalized it by drawing a Stripe comparison. Yes, WePay Clear takes on fraud responsibility & shields the platform. (as does Stripe Connect) However, WePay Clear does this in a whitelabel fashion, so that sellers on platforms do not need to creat…

Thanks Bill. Is there anything about the fraud protection that's particularly noteworthy? I thought Stripe Marketplaces addresses this use case, but perhaps the liability still falls on me (the developer) with Marketplaces?

Our VP of Risk, John Canfield, was a senior leader on eBay's Trust & Safety team for almost a decade. He did a great talk on Veda, our risk engine, at QCon - check it out here: http://www.infoq.com/presentations/big-data-payment-risk-man...

Re: Stripe Marketplaces, yes - that's my understanding based on my conversations with our customers.

Re: WePay (YC S09) Launches WePay Clear, a Stripe Competitor with Fraud Protection

#20

Post by billclerico »

JimmyL wrote: post #19

When a merchant signs up with WePay Clear, do they actually have full WePay accounts they can log into (which would have a WePay-branded experience)?

It's configurable either way. But most applications will probably choose to own the whole experience and not offer a WePay-branded experience.
Post reply on HN