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Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

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Re: Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

#161

Post by triceratops »

pembrook wrote: post #159
triceratops wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably pay for it with the exchange rate spread. Your card may say no foreign transaction fees but they're already taking a 3% profit margin on the currency conversion.

This. There's so much funny business that goes on with FX rates that it makes me almost pro-crypto. Even the people who claim to offer raw spot market rates (ie. Interactive Brokers), in fact do not offer that. I would not be surprised in Visa & Mastercard do the same--although they claim otherwise.

Come to think of it, would Visa/MC be doing the conversion? I believe that's the issuing bank's job. But they offer the rewards, not Visa/MC, so it doesn't change the original answer much.

Re: Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

#162

Post by avianlyric »

rgbrenner wrote: post #138
avianlyric wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU introduced price caps on interchange in 2015 capping interchange on credit cards at 0.3% and debit cards at 0.2%. That’s almost an order-of-magnitude lower than interchange fees in the US, which are usually around the 1%-2% level. This is big part of the reason you don’t see high value reward cards or cashback program in the EU. There simply isn’t the interchange revenue to fund them, which is good thing, beca…

"because high interchange + cashback creates a nasty regressive tax" There's an interchange surcharge for rewards cards. Stripe bundles this all together to make the pricing simpler.. but most merchants use traditional merchant accounts, and they are charged based on the type of card used. Edit: For example, here's visa's interchange fees: https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/download/merchants/vis...

Doesn’t really change anything. VISA and Mastercard rules also prevent merchants from discriminating based on card type, either you except all VISA/Mastercard cards, or you except none.

So the exact manner in which they’re billed to merchants is kinda irrelevant, the cost ends up being spread over all consumers, regardless of their ability to recover the money via cashback or rewards.

Re: Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

#163

Post by avianlyric »

kmlx wrote: post #111
avianlyric wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU introduced price caps on interchange in 2015 capping interchange on credit cards at 0.3% and debit cards at 0.2%. That’s almost an order-of-magnitude lower than interchange fees in the US, which are usually around the 1%-2% level. This is big part of the reason you don’t see high value reward cards or cashback program in the EU. There simply isn’t the interchange revenue to fund them, which is good thing, beca…

> you don’t see high value reward cards or cashback program in the EU. this seems like a false statement. here is an article from 2021 that highlights some of the numerous cashback offers: https://medium.com/@danminea/best-cashback-cards-with-reward... and Amex usually has cashback cards as well. disclaimer: i have used some of these cashback cards both in the EU and outside of it.

From the very article you link too, about three paragraphs in:

> Why then are there so few and apart offers for cashback cards that can be used in Europe?

>

> One explanation I’ve seen is this: they’re not so common in the EU because our debit/credit card fees are regulated and very low.

Re: Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

#164

Post by khuey »

MarkSweep wrote: post #133
khuey wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Debit card fees in the US have been capped at $0.22 + 0.05% for more than a decade.

Only for large banks. Search “ durbin exempt interchange”.

Last I looked at the numbers most transactions were covered by the Durbin Amendment. Interchange fees for exempt single message (PIN) transactions had also fallen to basically the cap. It was really only exempt double message (signature) transactions that were still expensive.

Re: Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

#165

Post by scrollaway »

krinchan wrote: post #144
scrollaway wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup exactly, but you need to take that strategy and apply it beyond europe. For this you need local networks in the US as well for example. Right now, there aren't really any; some crypto based local networks but that's all. But the US is undergoing some serious banking network updates this year and that likely means some new local networks are being built. This idea will look very different by 2024 and maybe even be…

You're referring to the launch of FedNow, right? It's interesting because most of the analysis I've seen keeps assuming it'll be more B2B and that people will just continue to use P2P apps. However, I don't see any reason said apps won't move to FedNow themselves. The underlying ACH should be fairly easy to swap out with FedNow, right? Venmo and CashApp have only free money (in the form of lower fees and faster settl…

Yeah FedNow. It will be b2b but this means an easier time to launch fintechs in that space that make use of it. Consumers will benefit, the iteration time is just a bit longer.

Re: Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

#166

Post by titaniumtown »

sschueller wrote: post #48

In Switzerland Stripe is already 2.9% + CHF0.30 which is higher than the new rate in the EU. If you want a local solution that also can do Twint (Swiss p2p payments) without extra contracts then I would recommend you try Payrexx[1]. Per transaction fees are also less than what Stripe is charging although you have a monthly fixed fee. [1] https://www.payrexx.ch

Switzerland isn't in the EEA though? or am I mistaken

Re: Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

#167

Post by marcosdumay »

doikor wrote: post #96
IshKebab wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes this is all that needs to happen. The EU should mandate that sellers can pass transaction costs on to consumers if they want (but no more than transaction costs, looking at you airlines).

> EU should mandate that sellers can pass transaction costs on to consumers EU actually mandates the opposite. It is illegal to pass the transaction costs to the consumer. The price you see on an item has the be the final price you end up paying.

Brazil has a similar rule, but the price you see on an item is the largest one you may end up paying. So, the seller can still reduce it if you choose a cheaper payment means, and many of them do that.

Re: Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

#168

Post by Zuiii »

rr888 wrote: post #117

Its crazy there isn't more competition. I was hoping that would be one thing cryptos would be good for. One thing I think regulators could do is force cc fees to be added to the price instead of hidden. Eg a $10 item costs $10, $10.20, $10.40 depending on which payment method you use.

> I was hoping that would be one thing cryptos would be good for.

It already is. While still not many, there are companies that will pass the savings realized from avoiding traditional payment processors fees by giving you discounts if you pay them in crypto (e.g. mullvad).

> One thing I think regulators could do is force cc fees to be added to the price instead of hidden.

I agree. Increasing competition by nullifying this part of merchant pgw agreements (standard in most agreements) would definitely be better than the status quo. Another option is to simply impose limits on cc fees and ban non-compliant processors but I believe your method is better. Give the customer the information and power to choose.

Re: Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

#169

Post by petesergeant »

thiscatis wrote: post #98
petesergeant wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> example the Revolut Metal card Right but that’s not a premium card and neither is Amex, so this doesn’t follow

The Revolut Metal (personal, not revolut business) example might not be the best one (see also my other reply) however the reason I mention is still the same, someone has to pay for the benefits these premium cards offer, the interchange on these is higher.

This appears to not be true, because this is specifically commercial cards, and not consumer cards. The correct answer seems to be this one:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34691714

Re: Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

#170

Post by a1371 »

burdapoint wrote: post #70

UK/EEA businesses who are paying out in USD to a US-domiciled bank account will now incur a 1% fee, with a minimum fee of US$2.50. My business does most of it's sales in USD and pays out to a US bank account, I don't understand this fee at all. Just because they can I guess? Stripe is really becoming the new PayPal. Will definitely be exploring options to move to Adyen or continue moving more customers over to Paddle…

I thought just the base fee was high but these rates are insane. Where I live, the taxes we pay are less than this. It's not like stripe needs this money to build roads, they are just moving digits.
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