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

Stripe Corporate Card

stripe.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 257 posts

Re: Stripe Corporate Card

#191

Post by H8crilA »

I'm worried about the proliferation revenue-based credit in Silicon Valley. Traditionally credit needs one of the following (ideally two): 1) established history of profit, not just revenue, and 2) collateral. How else are you supposed to convince creditors that you have the capability of paying it back? Stripe Capital, Brex just look at revenue streams.

Easy credit is an obvious predictor of trouble. 2008 to bring a memorable example. Anyone here has plans for shorting corporate credit? Best I could come up with is LEAPS puts on $BKLN. I'm holding some small amount, will double down if things start going south. Wish I could short the revenue-based Silicon Valley style credit. That one is quite ridiculous.

Re: Stripe Corporate Card

#192

Post by cloudytoday »

interesting move....they are like a whole new financial system where millions / billions of $$ are flowing from all the online/app transactions to the new financing thing they did and not the card...

Re: Stripe Corporate Card

#194

Post by syedkarim »

myalphabet wrote: post #146
tempsy wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who is the guarantor? The employee? That seems like a very shady thing to do given every expense put on that card is for work.

Yes, the employee. Why do you think it's shady? In my years of working in and around people with the same setup I've never heard of any complaints, and I know most of the other large consulting companies do it the same way. AFAIK the thought behind it is that not every expense on the card is for work - as a consultant, I travel every week and I put all kinds of expenses on the card (not all of which are strictly "for…

Why would you be buying any personal items with a company credit card? Isn't that what your own personal credit card is for?

Re: Stripe Corporate Card

#195

Post by astura »

r00fus wrote: post #55
wiggles_md wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depending on the industry sector, cash can effectively be several times more expensive to handle than the US market interchange fees. I don’t think it’s obviously horrible for merchants.

Can you explain what makes handling cash is so expensive? honest question.

Handling cash is very labor intensive, you're paying your highest paid employees (managers) to count cash multiple times before/after shifts, bank runs to deposit, making change, rolling coins, etc. Plus the cost of physical security for that cash.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180130005244/en/New...

>New Research from IHL Group Shows Retailers’ Cash-handling Costs Range from 4.7% to 15.3%, Depending on Retail Segment

Loss from theft is a huge deal as well, there was a coffee shop in Baltimore that went cash-free because they were getting robbed so much.

https://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2017/02/02/cashless-coffee-sh...

Re: Stripe Corporate Card

#196

Post by 4ntonius8lock »

myalphabet wrote: post #187
privateSFacct wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned something! I had no idea Amex did a guarantee. I routinely order multiple employee cards with nothing more than employee names. Sometimes they use last 4 digits or DOB to allow employee to authenticate for online access - you can use any 4 digits though you want (ie, employee ID works fine). No personal guarantee. Oddly, I'd never heard of a corporate card requiring an employee guarantee though I guess Amex…

That is interesting. I've only used AmEx Corp cards with a personal guarantee and wasn't aware there was any other way. For anyone else who stumbles across this comment: AmEx offers Corporate cards both with or without a personal guarantee, depending on what the company wants to do. And (also mentioned farther down in this thread) they also give the option to give the card rewards to each individual employee cardhold…

I could be wrong on this, and someone more knowledgeable feel free to correct, but the way I understand it is:

When you start a corporation with no history, any credit obtained is obtained through the founders personal credit history, with all the liability that entails.

When the corporation reaches a certain point of maturity, the corporation starts having it's own 'credit' and non-personally backed credit lines can be obtained.

I'm ignorant as to the variables used to determine 'maturity' (though processing volume and tax history are probably two, since I know you can get a corporate credit line backed by outstanding accounts receivable alone)

This is for a DE corporation and I'm a California resident.

Re: Stripe Corporate Card

#197

Post by myalphabet »

4ntonius8lock wrote: post #196
myalphabet wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is interesting. I've only used AmEx Corp cards with a personal guarantee and wasn't aware there was any other way. For anyone else who stumbles across this comment: AmEx offers Corporate cards both with or without a personal guarantee, depending on what the company wants to do. And (also mentioned farther down in this thread) they also give the option to give the card rewards to each individual employee cardhold…

I could be wrong on this, and someone more knowledgeable feel free to correct, but the way I understand it is: When you start a corporation with no history, any credit obtained is obtained through the founders personal credit history, with all the liability that entails. When the corporation reaches a certain point of maturity, the corporation starts having it's own 'credit' and non-personally backed credit lines can…

The company I have experience with using personally-backed corporate cards has been around for a century, has hundreds of thousands of employees, and billions of yearly profits. While I'm sure that your comment is true, 'maturity' is definitely not the only deciding factor in personally-backed vs company-backed cards.

Re: Stripe Corporate Card

#198

Post by astura »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #12

On top of the more normal percentage cash back, the partner benefits (like 5% off DigitalOcean) make this really appealing. Potentially interesting wrinkle: you're not allowed to carry a balance (from https://stripe.com/docs/corporate-card/faqs ).

>you're not allowed to carry a balance

This type of card is called a "charge card" (not "credit card") and is extremely common in business card land.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_card

AMEX's best known cards are charge cards as well - Green, Gold, Platinum.

Re: Stripe Corporate Card

#200

Post by blntechie »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #89
grey-area wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, Stripe are also investors in Monzo. This is the obvious long term play and there is no way the incumbents can keep up. It would also allow massive innovation in payments too. Visa and mastercard should be very worried about being displaced.

Visa might be the best business model ever made, I don't think it's going anywhere soon.. Extremely high barrier to entry, extremely low marginal costs, infinite scalability.

Look at China, India and other Asian countries. Visa and MasterCard never had that much of a strong foothold there and now debit and credit cards are pretty much antiquated by wallets and QR codes.
Post reply on HN