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

Amex for Developers

developer.americanexpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 95 posts

Re: Amex for Developers

#31

Post by ChemicalWarfare »

WhitneyLand wrote: post #5

Wow, talk about too little too late. This kind of late to the party strategy is why startups will always be needed to lead innovation. The irony is the highest ranking person at AmEx who really understands this is probably a pretty smart guy who had to fight and lobby for years to rally enough support to make this happen. edit: Its worse than I thought. A quick search shows they brought in high level talent from Goog…

Well, they aren't THAT late :) Visa, for example launched something like this just few months back.

I'm also not sure what kind of impact these APIs have in the "real world", I'd venture to guess vast majority of the merchants is sticking with one-stop-shop payment processors instead of switching to point-to-point integrations with card networks.

Re: Amex for Developers

#33

Post by throwanem »

niftich wrote: post #13

It's tempting to think this ship has already sailed and they're late to the party, but I'm actually more concerned. Recently, we saw MasterCard announcing APIs; ultimately the card issuers are the real gatekeepers of their own data and their own integrations, and as more of them move to gain the control back that they ceded with their lack of public developer engagement, the role of payment processors becomes less cl…

One quibble: MasterCard and Visa are associations, not issuers. (AmEx is sort of both - iPhone to Visa's and MasterCard's Android.)

I don't know that processors have a lot to worry about here. It's been a few years since I was in the space, but from a dev perspective, there'd have to be some really compelling reasons to implement (and pay fees for!) an integration per card type, rather than one integration for all payment cards.

Re: Amex for Developers

#34

Post by throwanem »

jly wrote: post #20
brianbreslin wrote: post #17

So can someone explain to me why one would use amex over stripe or braintree? Or why would one use mastercard's API or Visa's? They all have similar APIs right?

The biggest reason would be price. I don't know the amex payment pricing or how it differs from stripe/braintree, but cutting out the middle man has got to be cheaper. I run a small business using stripe and cc processing fees are a big hit. The service and support is amazing and it's so easy to use, but it's not cheap. They charge the same for every card type when the card providers charge in-person merchants much d…

Are you doing card-not-present? That's going to be a fee hit over card-present regardless of processor.

If you're doing card-present, look into traditional acquirers and also chip-and-PIN. You'll pay considerably more up front, but less over time due to the fee difference, and you'll also no longer need to sweat being on the wrong end of the EMV liability shift.

Re: Amex for Developers

#35

Post by lostsock »

locusm wrote: post #25
ajdlinux wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IDK, I've used Amex in Australia for >50% of my credit card spend. All major supermarkets, department stores, most petrol stations and fast food chains accept it. I assume outside of those categories it really depends where you are though - the cafe across the road from my office accepts Amex with no surcharge and no minimum, but I'm in CBR in the heart of public service territory, so...

I goto the supermarket once a week so yeah, thats the only time I use it. I've given up asking otherwise.

Most merchants that also accept AMEX have a little sticker in their window. There are actually a lot more businesses that allow you to use an AMEX without a surcharge than there used to be: https://maps.americanexpress.com/aushopsmall#/

Re: Amex for Developers

#36

Post by traek »

mikesickler wrote: post #26
ecommerceguy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And these service providers offer the >highest The only people I've ever met that recommend Stripe are developers. The only people I'd recommend Square to are merchants whose avg ticket is less than $5 or are borderline hobbyists. The number of hardcore PP users has dropped significantly in the last 5 years, in my experience, to less than 10%.

Square is really competitive up to about $15 a ticket

If you're doing significant volume, give them a call and they'll give you a custom cost-plus rate.

Re: Amex for Developers

#37

Post by nodesocket »

I'll play devils advocate. If your Netflix and this direct Amex integration saves you 1/2 percent per transaction that makes a huge difference to your bottom line.

Netflix current subscribers 83 million and average revenue per subscriber per month is $10.32.

    $83M * $10.32 = $857M total revenue per month.
    Assume 10% of transactions are Amex. $857M * .10 = $86M per month.
    Finally 1/2 percent of $86M is a savings $430,000 per month.

Re: Amex for Developers

#38

Post by wpietri »

contingencies wrote: post #12
OliverJones wrote: post #4

Hmm. For the typical card-not-present (online) use case, stripe.com and paypal do a pretty darn good job of processing AMEX payment cards, as well as the others. Tokenization is vital in this age of cybermiscreants. Ya don't want customer payment card data in your dbms. The stripe.com API offers tokenization, and it offers the ability to send and validate data like zip/postcode, cvv and street address to cut fraud. T…

offers tokenization s/tokenization/lockin/ # devil's advocate

Not sure why this is downvoted, but it's a fair point. I know of a small business with a lot of subscriptions and this became a big issue for them when provider quality declined.

Re: Amex for Developers

#39

Post by nodesocket »

nodesocket wrote: post #37

I'll play devils advocate. If your Netflix and this direct Amex integration saves you 1/2 percent per transaction that makes a huge difference to your bottom line. Netflix current subscribers 83 million and average revenue per subscriber per month is $10.32. $83M * $10.32 = $857M total revenue per month. Assume 10% of transactions are Amex. $857M * .10 = $86M per month. Finally 1/2 percent of $86M is a savings $430,0…

UPDATE: I originally thought it was a savings of $430,000 a year, but it is actually a savings of $430,000 a month.

ORIGINAL: I think I just talked myself out of my own argument. That $430,000 savings is basically the cost of one Netflix engineer. The technical debt to maintain separate Amex billing easily would exceed $430,000 a year.

Re: Amex for Developers

#40

Post by mgkimsal »

nodesocket wrote: post #39
nodesocket wrote: post #37

I'll play devils advocate. If your Netflix and this direct Amex integration saves you 1/2 percent per transaction that makes a huge difference to your bottom line. Netflix current subscribers 83 million and average revenue per subscriber per month is $10.32. $83M * $10.32 = $857M total revenue per month. Assume 10% of transactions are Amex. $857M * .10 = $86M per month. Finally 1/2 percent of $86M is a savings $430,0…

UPDATE: I originally thought it was a savings of $430,000 a year, but it is actually a savings of $430,000 a month. ORIGINAL: I think I just talked myself out of my own argument. That $430,000 savings is basically the cost of one Netflix engineer. The technical debt to maintain separate Amex billing easily would exceed $430,000 a year.

why does the "cost of an engineer" continue to keep going massively up whenever these comparisons are made?

$430k? are netflix engineers that special?

glassdoor shows sr engineers around $200k - i can't tell if they're including stock/bonus in that or not. Range start in $120k range. Yes, taxes, yes benefits, but... $430k?

Post reply on HN