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Balanced payments is shutting down

balancedpayments.com

111–120 of 189 posts

Re: Balanced payments is shutting down

#111
One side note (from a cofounder of WePay here). WePay is 100% focused on serving the needs of two-sided platforms like marketplaces - and now we're the only company that can claim to do so.

We're bummed to see Balanced go, as I think they have a great product - indicative of what a focus on the space can produce. But we're excited to carry the torch forward.

We process billions annually and have crossed the scale chasm that the article describes (and have raised a fair amount of money to boot).

If any Balanced customer (or other marketplace) would like to chat, I'm happy to do so. Shoot me a note at bill@wepay.com

Re: Balanced payments is shutting down

#115
This is indeed very sad news. We at BillForward (YCS14) found the Balanced payments platform for ACH very well designed.

Plaid and Stripe certainly have caught up and both and offer good ACH alternatives. Best of luck to those migrating. Happy to chat with anyone who is interested in help with gateway independent ACH payments and subscription management. I'm on ian AT billforward . NET

Re: Balanced payments is shutting down

#116
post #12

Stripe cofounder here. I just wanted to tip our hats to the folks at Balanced. Stripe and Balanced have certainly competed against each other in the marketplace space for a few years, but we have a lot of respect for how Matin and his team executed with creatively and determination. While we're of course glad Balanced decided that migrating to Stripe was the best thing for their users, today is kinda bittersweet for…

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Re: Balanced payments is shutting down

#117

One side note (from a cofounder of WePay here). WePay is 100% focused on serving the needs of two-sided platforms like marketplaces - and now we're the only company that can claim to do so. We're bummed to see Balanced go, as I think they have a great product - indicative of what a focus on the space can produce. But we're excited to carry the torch forward. We process billions annually and have crossed the scale cha…

Normally I don't like these types of ransacking infomercials, but I think you, like PC of Stripe, struck the right notes with your tone. I'm a long-time Stripe user but I'll look into WePay.

Good luck to your team!

Re: Balanced payments is shutting down

#118
post #99
post #62

I never used Balanced, but I want to really commend this announcement. It is the first announcement of such a kind that comes with a well-considered and already provided migration plan for customers to ensure no loss of service. That's a great standard to work to... leave yourself enough runway to look after your customers. The Balanced team should feel incredibly proud of managing such a co-ordinated shut down whils…

Yes, they should! This is a very mature and responsible shutdown (I'd also expect it to be mature and responsible, since payments are Very Important, but, on the other hand...). +1 to the Balanced executives for being mature.

Definitely a mature approach, and it's definitely better for Balanced customers to have a migration plan. However, I don't think we can assume that Balanced "[left itself] enough runway to look after [its] customers" or that the primary motivation is maturity.

Balanced may have offered to sell their customer base to Stripe (or sell the company to Stripe, which presumably was refused). If Stripe accepted a deal to purchase Balanced's customer base, then it might have provided as payment, in part, an injection of cash to keep Balanced running for 90 days to implement the migration and hold up their side of the deal. Balanced might have suspended operations already if not for the hypothetical cash payment.

I'm not saying it would be wrong for Balanced to make that decision -- it's certainly better than shutting down! I'm just pointing out that Balanced may have other/more complex motivations for doing this than maturity, altruism, and leaving behind a good legacy. Balanced might be equally looking after its own shareholders by selling its (perhaps) most valuable asset: the customers. (The value of that asset crashes once Balanced ceases operations or announces its intention to do so, since its customers will immediately move to a competitor. Thus, this asset can only be sold while Balanced is still operating.)

I have no data - I'm just speculating. However, would a responsible board allow a company to continue to operate and burn cash for 90 days solely for the purpose of migrating customers to a competitor, and taking further losses in the process, when it could shut down instead and disburse its remaining assets to shareholders and creditors? (I do not intend to cast asperions on Stripe or Balanced. There's nothing wrong about this if it's what happened - it's rational and in everyone's interest.)

Re: Balanced payments is shutting down

#119

90 days doesn't seem enough time at all. We run a big system on balanced. We're fucked.

This is one of those moments where good programming architecture and integration testing becomes obviously useful. We have a payment gateway interface and the transition to Stripe will be relatively painless after accounting for some accounting differences in how fees are charged.

Totally true. We didn't do a great job in this case. At the end, programming can be summarized in two words: interfaces and abstractions.

Re: Balanced payments is shutting down

#120

90 days doesn't seem enough time at all. We run a big system on balanced. We're fucked.

This is one of those moments where good programming architecture and integration testing becomes obviously useful. We have a payment gateway interface and the transition to Stripe will be relatively painless after accounting for some accounting differences in how fees are charged.

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