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

support.stripe.com

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

#191

Post by nerdbert »

roel_v wrote: post #141
Ekaros wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Finland with my fairly large bank the barrier is pretty much same if the card isn't already saved. Actually SEPA is easier as I only need to log in and confirm instead of having to provide CC details and log in to confirm the transfer.

Yeah this. SEPA (e.g. what is known in the Netherlands as Ideal) is easier than entering cc numbers. Unlock phone, open app, scan qr code, enter pin on phone, click OK. Much nicer and faster than entering 16 + 3 numbers, and don't even get me started on 3DSecure or whatever it's called bullshit.

Nevertheless I choose to use a credit card almost all the time because of the purchase protections and rebates.

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

#192

Post by miroljub »

capableweb wrote: post #4

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…

None of these services is Merchant of Record (that handles taxes). Neither is Stripe.

At this day and age, I don't understand why would any small to medium business that sells online internationally use anything else but Merchant of Records. International taxes are just a PITA that it's not worth trading a few percent of payment processor fee for a full-blown team of international tax accountants.

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

#193

Post by GordonS »

iam-TJ wrote: post #178
GordonS wrote: 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?

Yes, but isn't it also the case that companies pay a monthly fee for those cards, offsetting against that?

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

#194

Post by carlosjobim »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #184
carlosjobim wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 yo…

In English (UK) it still says "* we'll no longer refund this fee if the customer's bank resolves the dispute in your favor.*" (so much for British English spelling, by the way) But you're right that at least ub Spanish (Spain), French (France), Italian, Portuguese (Brazil) it says that the fee will be refunded if the dispute is resolved in your favour. Oops.

I'm a Stripe customer and logged in when viewing the page, it could depend on such factors. In UK English it still says I get the fee back.

It will be interesting to see exactly who is going to have this change imposed on them.

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

#195

Post by remus »

marcopicentini wrote: post #79

I don’t understand why fees are in percentage and not fixed. Transferring 100$ is not 10 times more expensive for them than moving 10$.

Risk of fraud. Moving the money is not expensive, but if a $10k transaction turns out to be fraudulent then you're on the line for a big chunk of money. If you know your fraud rate is ~1%, then if you charge 1.5% on all transactions then over enough transactions you can cover the fraudulent ones and have some profit left over.

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

#196

Post by cataflam »

GordonS wrote: 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.…

Consumer card fees are capped pretty low in EU (and still UK I guess), something like 0.30%.

Commercial card fees are not capped and are more around 1.5% to 2.0%

If anything, now that they have split consumer and commercial cards in their fees, it's the consumer card fees that are shockingly high.

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

#197

Post by wstrange »

ddorian43 wrote: post #169
blackhaz wrote: post #134

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…

What about opening a Wise account and transferring from Paypal to there?

Paypal will not let you add Wise online (at least in my case - Canada), but I called and talked to an agent and they were able to add Wise as a bank.

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

#198

Post by [deleted] »

capableweb wrote: post #167
fatfox wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also worth checking out Braintree (PayPal). It's not the worst dev experience.

As the notice from Stripe is about Stripe customers in Europe, I thought the alternative list should be focused on European alternatives.

[deleted]

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

#199

Post by cataflam »

superzamp wrote: post #33
01acheru wrote: 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…

There are multiple types of SEPA payments, I think you're talking about SEPA Credit Transfer (essentially making the bank transfer yourself).

On the other hand, for SEPA Direct Debit, not only is the interface quite reasonable (you enter your IBAN and confirm a mandate), but consumer protection is very high. You can chargeback no questions asked for 8 weeks, it will be immediately accepted and the merchant can't do anything about it. And as a customer, besides the 8 weeks no questions asked policy, you have 13 months to ask for a refund of an unauthorised transaction, with supporting evidence. In practice, the bank will always accept such a request too.

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

#200

Post by aembleton »

neodypsis wrote: post #111
rvz wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did HNers here not realize that Stripe is slowly becoming like PayPal, given the customer support stories of random locked funds and accounts for months? The alternative has always been to use multiple gateways.

> The alternative has always been to use multiple gateways. One should have at least 3 alternatives and load-balance evenly (or using another strategy depending on fee structures).

That seems like a lot of work
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