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Comment by boucher | Hacker News Reader

Unfortunately, there are just a lot of regulations when dealing with payments across international borders.

Seriously, I really need to know something about this. It's driving me mad to keep seeing promising payment services only to find out they won't deal with me.

Yours is the most compelling one I've seen.

One major barrier is that in many countries it's difficult to set up a service like this in a way that doesn't require it to be a bona-fide "bank", and setting up a bona-fide bank is often not low-overhead.

Do they even need a presence in other countries to be able to work with companies in them?

The Patriot Act.

While this reply is short it is right. The Patriot Act is the reason why these nice things generally aren't available to non US citizens. Patriot Act Section 312: http://ithandbook.ffiec.gov/media/resources/3356/con-usa_pat...

As you can see if you want to provide this service to a foreigner then you need to do checks on this person and his bank. This costs such much that most will decide that it is not cost effective to do so.

This costs such much that most will decide that it is not cost effective to do so.

Well, why do their representatives insist it's a "top priority" then?

Presumably they will set up a company in Europe instead of handling it from the US company, but this takes extra time and effort so most companies start in the US (and empirically they stay that way until they become very big).

Something just occurred to me.

FastSpring, which is a US company, can actually work with non-US companies just fine. Why is that?

Also, at some point I asked them why they could, and BrainTree couldn't, and they said they can't really think of a reason why.

So.. What exactly is the deal? I'm dying to know.

Most merchant acquirers, as well as the US Government, will interpret sections 312 and 326 of the US Patriot Act to require a Social Security Number to positively identify a merchant application and to check the applicant against various financial crimes and terrorist lists. This essentially prohibits non-US companies. There are some exceptions, but this is generally the rule.

Many of the card acceptance solutions that do not require this information are not actually issuing merchant accounts or are otherwise performing what is known as aggregration or is opening a merchant account on your behalf that they own. Some are also issuing merchant accounts in non-US banks. Others are in violation of US law.

So Stripe is in fact opening a merchant account fir each user that signs up?

I am curious that a social security number is all that is required...why is it such a pain to get a merchant account with a bank or other acquirer? I am curious how Stripe can make it so simple.

There are two big reasons as to why it's so painful elsewhere. One is underwriting: people want to know a lot about your business so they can figure out if you're likely to be fraudulent (or expensively incompetent). They typically do this by taking a shotgun approach to information requirements.

The second reason is that it's "standard", and everybody copies the "standard" without much consideration. The companies providing merchant accounts are usually not technology companies, and historically haven't had thought much about product.

We like to think that we can do much better than traditional companies on both counts.

Thanks Patrick.

I am curious as I am in fact an Australian citizen and know that a lot of people have a hard time here when trying to open a merchant account. From what I've read and heard it's traditionally a similar in the US and it is obviously one of the killer features of Stripe.

Was it hard for you to work with a bank (Wells Fargo) on this? From what I've heard banks are the main driver behind the 'shotgun' approach to information collection, at least here in Australia. I could well be wrong on this, hence I ask the question.

You are already doing a much better job than traditional companies on both accounts, it's great to watch and I'm sure you guys will continue to do great work.

Note: I just realised my spelling error in my previous post...iPhone autocorrect got the better of me!a

I don't think it is easy to expand to many countries with products that are sensitive to regulations, e.g. payment, and music streaming.

A lot of these services are not available outside the US. Last time I checked Google Checkout was limited to the US as well.

It is really annoying as I live in Canada and I cannot use many of these services.

google checkout works in the uk

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