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

Stripe increases price for business in the European Economic Area

support.stripe.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 237 posts

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

#171

Post by Dayshine »

woobar wrote: post #160
Timshel wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish those transaction cost would be made visible. Imo the seller should not care which card the client use, if it's more expensive to use a "premium" card then it should be made visible to the client and he should be the one to pay the overhead.

In US sales tax is made visible, i.e. it is not included in the listed price. And first thing foreign visitors do is complain about this.

That's not what visible means. Visible means a breakdown. List price should always include all fees.

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

#172

Post by kylehotchkiss »

> Dispute fees (also known as chargebacks) will increase from €15 to €20. We’ll also no longer refund this fee if the customer’s bank resolves the dispute in your favor, due to the costs Stripe incurs for managing dispute evidence submissions (regardless of the outcome).

Is Stripe testing dispute fees for all chargebacks out in EU before rolling out in the US?

1) This is gonna be bad for NGOs

2) So now people can just DDOS an org with chargebacks to put them in the red?

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

#173

Post by flangola7 »

bjackman wrote: post #10

I have been pondering transaction costs lately. Seems like this is an area where intervention could have massive impact: these costs are effectively a tax that incurs deadweight loss so according to prevailing economic theory if we can reduce it the whole economy should be catalysed. IIUC governments already introduce price caps for certain elements of this market but I think we could be doing more? Like mandating in…

I don't see a reason something as critical as transaction networks should remain privatized, it should be operated by society (via democratic government), not private interests.

We don't have private corporations operate highways or the federal mail system. They may operate (heavily regulated) airlines, but not the traffic control that manages their interactions.

Imagine having to pay a "takeoff clearance fee" or a toll station at every highway on-ramp.

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

#174

Post by ar0 »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #151
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…

> This is big part of the reason you don’t see high value reward cards or cashback program in the EU. Interestingly my US 1.5%-3% (regular, also 5% special) cashback cards keep paying out on transactions here in the EU. I've always wondered who is losing out in that equation.

The answer is in the original Stripe article: The merchant pays much higher fees when you pay with your US credit card than when you pay with a EEA credit card because the interchange limits only apply to purchases within the EEA made with a "standard" EEA credit card (corporate cards are also exempt, which is why Stripe is charging higher fees for them as well).

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

#175

Post by traceroute66 »

titaniumtown wrote: post #166
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

> Switzerland ....

Everything's outrageously expensive in Switzerland, so why shouldn't Stripe be too !

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

#176

Post by ar0 »

adrr wrote: post #107
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…

How do credit cards provide 60 day interest free loan with only 0.3% charge to the merchants? I can see low interchange rates for debit cards like the US the interchange for debit card for major banks is capped at 0.05%.

There are lots of other ways credit card companies can make money: - Higher interchange fees when you purchase something outside of the EEA - Currency conversion when you buy something not in EUR - High interest payments when you do not pay off your balance in full on time

On average, it will also not be a 60 day interest free loan: the "average" transaction will happen in the middle of the billing cycle, so that gives you 15 days until the invoice is sent, and many people I know pay their invoices much earlier than after the 30 days payment term.

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

#177

Post by traceroute66 »

avianlyric wrote: post #78
bjackman wrote: post #10

I have been pondering transaction costs lately. Seems like this is an area where intervention could have massive impact: these costs are effectively a tax that incurs deadweight loss so according to prevailing economic theory if we can reduce it the whole economy should be catalysed. IIUC governments already introduce price caps for certain elements of this market but I think we could be doing more? Like mandating in…

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…

> nasty regressive tax that transfers vast amounts on wealth from

As long as you're not a well off person with an AMEX card that regularly makes purchases outside of your AMEX card currency.

AMEX is nuts in that all non-home currency transactions go via USD.

So, for example, if you have a EUR AMEX and you make a GBP purchase, your conversion will go GBP -> USD -> EUR with AMEX taking a cut at each step along the way.

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

#178

Post by tialaramex »

hocuspocus wrote: post #154
axelthegerman wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By charging exorbitant interest for folks who don't pay off their balance in full. Which kind of reminds me of SaaS products that offer a free tier to sell you on the premium subscriptions

I really doubt that many credit card holders are actually using the revolving credit in Europe. For starters in most European countries, you are probably not going to qualify unless you're rich enough to pay your bills in full every month.

You can doubt it if you want, but the Credit Reference Agencies make a big fraction of their money because this is in fact possible.

Say I'm Big Bank, and I want to launch a card I'm calling "Bonus Credit". I want to target customers who mostly will pay me, eventually, but aren't so flush that they can pay their full balance every month (e.g. they buy their summer break in January, pay it off over the next 3-4 months). I call Jumbo National Credit and I offer them £25 per sign-up if they give me customers who have no super-negative credit events in the past say, 12 months but are say 75-95% on recent payment history. Jumbo present this as a "Pre-qualified" instant Credit Card option for customers who match the profile, on their free web site. Click now, you are guaranteed to be accepted. Customers don't even realise they're reading an advert.

You may have noticed that although 30 years ago "Credit score" was something you needed to go out of your way to discover, today you can get your score on a web site - sign up today to see it instantly. Why are these companies telling you something that was once an important trade secret ? Because these sites are now effectively marketing for 3rd party credit products. AIUI Experian invented this, I worked with people who were in a small rogue group at Experian which proposed instead of fighting the government to keep it secret they should turn access into a revenue source, they were laughed at internally more or less up until the record profits rolled in and then suddenly it was champagne and bonuses.

Post reply on HN