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Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

support.stripe.com

171–180 of 244 posts

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#171
post #156

Oh, so I'm going to pay more for customers who have "premium cards"? > Standard EU cards: 1.5% + €0.25 per transaction > Premium EU card: 1.9% + €0.25 per transaction That sounds completely backwards. They chose to have premium cards, not me.

This is not about actual premium cards. Premium cards are defined by Stripe as:

> Commercial, corporate, or business cards issued by Visa and Mastercard

The reason is that in 2015 the EU capped interbank fees to 0.2% for debit cards and 0.3% for credit cards. Visa and Mastercard (and issuing banks) managed to carve out an exemption for payment cards that are issued to businesses. These cards do have much higher fees. I'm actually surprised that Stripe has refrained so far from charging more for business cards.

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#172

This ain't as bad as international PayPal... We (EU company) have clients paying from abroad via PayPal. I can't figure out what to do with this. We're being hit with 4.7% PayPal international fee, then ~ 3.75% fee to convert USD to our local currency to withdraw to our bank account. (PayPal won't let us withdraw USD.) Then another 2-3% to convert it back to USD in our bank to pay our supplier in USD. Imagine the tot…

I do not like paypal(very shady business) but still use it as a proxy - I do not trust my CC data to some small merchant on the internet. PayPal just books directly from my bank account. I am not sure, however, if it adds some security.

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#173
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This strikes me as weird. It’s very normal. It’s why a lot of services immediately ban you for life if you ever issue a chargeback (regardless of validity). Stripe was the sole sensible service out there (that I know of) where chargebacks wouldn’t hit a small business as hard as long as they could prove they were in the right. But it seems Stripe is becoming everything it originally railed against.

Except you will lose every chargeback. Despite evidence including IP logs and screenshots. Easier to just lifeban every customer that does a chargeback vs spend 10 hours dealing with stripe + bank, and still losing, no matter the reason.

> Except you will lose every chargeback

we were winning at least 50% of our chargebacks by providing evidence.

> Easier to just lifeban every customer

true. funny how an instrument that is supposed to combat fraud (by companies), is now mostly used to commit fraud (by consumers)

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#174
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This strikes me as weird. User buys something from me, regrets it and issues a chargeback, dispute gets started and bank says I did nothing wrong, so the charge still sticks, but Stripe gets to keep the fee for handling the dispute? You should include this in your contract terms with the customer and collect the dispute fee from them. It's not reasonable of you to expect Stripe to just absorb this cost.

Yeah that is not even remotely legal in any country with decent consumer protection.

Why not? Could you give an example as to why this would not be legal in some country of your choice?

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#175
post #96

3.25% for USD card for EU business + 0.5% for stripe tax + 0.4% for invoice + 0.5% for stripe checkout. It really adds up! MasterCard and Visa are mostly to blame here. They haven't innovated at all in the past 30 years and the fees they charge are wildly out of balance with the service they provide. They're awful, and I can't wait to see these credit card companies crash and burn when they get some real competition.

MasterCard and Visa as long as keep their moat, they don't need to innovate. Big companies like that will not innovate enough to make fees low. Yearly operating expenses of VISA as a company is nearly $10B with a net income of almost $15B. Not hard to make the math how fees just make the income and moat bigger.

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this indirectly happens. I live in Haarlem, Netherlands, and some popular supermarkets in my area would not accept a VISA/Mastercard. They only accept Maestro(Which I think is cheaper for them because it is a debit card that Dutch banks give out). I found it surprising because that should mean they lose out on some business from so many expats that visit/live in Netherlands, but apparently not.

This happens in the US, too. A local (western US) example is WinCo Foods, a chain of grocery stores. The only cards they take are debit (and EBT, but that is a different issue). No credit cards.

Interestingly, Aldi in the US used to only take debit cards, and changed to accepting credit cards a few years ago.

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the communiqué from Stripe, they state that any such fee will be repaid if you win the dispute. https://support.stripe.com/questions/pricing-updates-for-bus...

From the very page you linked: > Dispute fees (also known as chargebacks) will increase from €15 to €20. Due to costs for managing dispute evidence submissions, we'll no longer refund this fee if the customer's bank resolves the dispute in your favor. It used to be that you got the fee refunded if it got resolved in your favor, but after the changes go into effect (10 April 2023), it won't be like that anymore.

Wow! In the language version they're showing me, they write the opposite. Translated from the page:

"Changes for disputes Fees for disputes (also known as chargeback or recrediting) will increase from €15 to €20. If the customer's bank resolves the dispute in your favour, the full fee will be refunded."

Edit: After doing some more research, it seems that it is only US customers that will lose their dispute fee. If you choose English (United Kingdom) as your language, it says you can keep the fee if you win the dispute.

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#178
post #74

Yikes, these are substantial prices hikes! And what's this new nonsense about increased costs for "premium" cards? From here[0], it describes these cards as "Commercial, corporate, or business cards issued by Visa and Mastercard" - but why would Stripe charge more for the use of such cards? Surely the chargeback rate for businesses must be orders of magnitude lower than that of consumer cards? https://support.stripe.…

Isn't it the case that these 'premium' cards usually require full balance settlement each month? In which case there is no opportunity for the card issuer to earn interest on outstanding balances as there is with personal credit cards so the card issuers add the 'lost' income to the transaction fee?

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#179

Some European alternatives you might be able to find/negotiate better fees with: - mollie (Netherlands) - adyen (Netherlands) - Klarna (Sweden) - Paylike (Denmark) - Mangopay (Luxembourg) - Quickpay (Denmark) (added in edit) The ones I've tried of those, have an OK development experience, maybe not as polished as Stripe, but much better than the alternatives that were around before Stripe (huge hassle back then). Ide…

Adyen is relatively solid if you know what you're doing, Mangopay felt like a small hippie solution in comparison. The upside is Mangopay was pretty reactive when we needed a human to talk to, the downside being that many requests would just end in "tough luck, we're too smal for that" We ended up moving to Adyen for that reason.

Mangopay IME was a huge PITA for the last few years. Only in the last year with management change have they actually started to give a damn.

Re: Stripe increases fees for EU and UK-based businesses in April

#180
post #2

Something needs to change in the digital payments sector. 1.5% is ok-ish but 3.25% to accept foreign cards in the EU is a lot of money! I understand that costs are higher when using credit cards because of the credit part that introduces risk, but in my case for example I have a debit card that runs also over Mastercard, so either I have the money or I don't. Why should a merchant be charged the same fee of using a r…

The problem with SEPA payment, is that it's great for the merchant and a net loss for the user, especially individual consumers. From a UX perspective today, it will always be more cumbersome to initiate a SEPA transfer to the merchant. Some integrations offer a semblance of interactivity with your banking app in an attempt to streamline it, but nothing beats the simplicity entering your cards details or just showing…

If it's offered, I pay with the Danish Mobilepay app. The flow is:

1. Click "Pay with Mobilepay"

2. Enter phone number, or confirm it if if the merchant already knows this

3. Press notification on phone, fingerprint, and swipe right to approve.

I'm not sure how this appears to the business, but to me it looks like any other payment or transfer on my bank statement.

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