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Comment by linuxhansl | Hacker News Reader

Whatever the backstory of this particular incident is... It's clear that Stripe, Paypal, et al need to be regulated like a bank. Period.

If it looks like duck...

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PayPal is a bank in the EU. Seems to work fine. Same needs to happen everywhere.

It's not. It is an electronic money institution, which is far from a bank, it can only keep customer funds and process payments.

I don’t know the difference, but it does say that on the tin: https://www.paypal.com/lu/webapps/mpp/about

> PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. et Cie, S.C.A. is a credit institution (or bank) authorised and supervised by Luxembourg’s financial regulator, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (or CSSF). CSSF’s registered office: 283, route d’Arlon, L-1150 Luxembourg.

A bank can lend out deposits, ie. client money, ie. someone else's money. A normal regulated entity, like say an exchange, cannot.

Can't comment re PayPal specifically.

That is a very selective and borderline illegal description they are using. A bank is a credit institution, but now every ci is a bank.

Paypal and revolut are 100% not banks, they are financial institutions or emis, They can manage your money but not lend out anything and they have to hold the assets at 3rd party banks.

All global corporations need to be regulated. I heard a number of cases, when people could not reach FB support, they just ignore everyone. Did you know? It took Stripe 10 years to do it and 7 years for Robinhood. What do you think it is? 24×7 phone and chat support!

Facebook support has an interesting feature: you have to be logged in to access it, and if they have decided that your support request is ‘closed’ then in my experience the option to contact them again is disabled.

Why would Stripe need to be regulated "like a bank"? It's a payment processor.

It handles money. You're not supposed to keep money IN it, not for very long anyway. It's a path, not a destination.

Paypal is different. They are b2c and heavily advertise their wallet service. They have crypto and ways to earn interest off of it. They upsell insurance and credit cards.

How are they comparable?!

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