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Comment by hknmtt | Hacker News Reader

Every country has couple, if not dozens, of payment processors. Most of them will support foreign customers as well. So you have hundreds and thousands of options here. Bottom line will be that they are all essentially the same when it comes to functionality and pricing because they are the middlemen between you and visa/mastercard/... and not much else. So there is very little variety possible in this little space. It will mostly come down to how "pretty" their gateway is(unless you are doing direct integration without redirection), how responsive their support team is and how they bill you and provide transaction information. Again, not much variety. So pick the cheapest one and be done with it.

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Outside of the US this is not true at all. There are plenty of ways to transfer money without touching the CC networks but instead use interbank communications. iDeal, Klarna, SEPA: all fixed pricing instead of percentage based fees. It depends on where you want to provide your services.

> Outside of the US this is not true at all

I think you meant "not entirely true". Yes, there are other options.

In Poland barely anyone uses cards for online payments. There are couple of different options: one-time automatic transfers that support major banks, BLIK (payment via one-time code), etc.

Exactly, and it works well. Unfortunately as a customer you don't have the level of protection with these services a CC or a specialised top up "virtual" debit card has. Charge backs etc. It's one of the reasons why these alternative payment methods are a lot less risky to process and therefore cheaper for the merchants.

So it makes me wonder why global companies like Google are so "credit card" centric. For example. You can attach a debit card as a payment mechanism for Google cloud services, but it can't be a top up one... Why? It is very annoying I have to open an extra account with overdraft block just to maintain some control on the spending if they suddenly decide to charge a wrong amount.

> Unfortunately as a customer you don't have the level of protection with these services a CC or a specialised top up "virtual" debit card has.

Generally, you'd have to have your bank account hacked to have a reason to reverse a charge on these types of systems. It happens, but very, very rarely and the banks have a lot of reasons to make sure it doesn't happen. That or you gave money to a scammer and that's your own fault (but they'll still help you).

This is why the fees are much, much lower. Often these systems even verify that you actually have the money and can transfer the amount to your business bank account on the same day. You can't do that with credit cards.

> That or you gave money to a scammer and that's your own fault (but they'll still help you).

Is it really that merchant-friendly / anti-consumer? I have used chargebacks when merchants fail to deliver as promised, even when most people wouldn’t call them “some scammer”.

For instance recently a package was shipped that didn’t include one of many items. I asked for a refund, they claimed it was in the package. No worries, I’ll just do a chargeback.

So you’re one of those people. I refuse to do business with people who do chargebacks without reason. I wish there was a list of them.

You perfectly illustrated why credit cards are better for customers. There is fraud protection, which you don't have with other payment methods.

Bank transfers and other direct methods are only an advantage for the seller and gives no advantage to the customer. That's why businesses that don't accept credit cards lose customers.

> You can't do that with credit cards.

Yes, you can. Stripe has same-day payouts, as do many more.

Hmm. I think we are talking past each other. There isn’t a need for fraud protection because people can’t get access to your bank account. Bank accounts where I am aren’t like they are in the US.

Every time I login I have to verify my identity (or use faceid on my phone). The bank account is basically unhackable without my physical presence.

Thus using something like ideal, there’s no need for fraud protection because it makes damn sure it’s you and asks like 4 times that you are sure.

Yes, we're talking past each other. What credit card fraud protection means is that if you purchased something and didn't receive your product, or didn't receive the product as specified, you will get your money back from the credit card company. If you purchase something with a bank transfer and you didn't receive the product you can call the bank, but they won't give you your money back. With credit cards you have some protection against being scammed.

Ah. That makes sense. Yeah, bank transfers aren’t really protected from that use case. Usually you just contact the merchant and have them refund you. I’ve never used a chargeback.

I'm always surprised by the diminutive and inaccurate view of the US that I see on HN. This is, of course, EXACTLY the same in the US and elsewhere. The OP was asking specifically about CC processing.

OP said _payment processing_, and then parent said

> they are all essentially the same when it comes to functionality and pricing because they are the middlemen between you and visa/mastercard/... and not much else

Which is false, as there are many payment providers using fixed cost models and not touching the CC networks. And in a lot of countries this is the main method of online payments instead of credit cards.

I would not say it is exactly the same as in the US.

I'd be interested to see some stats on that. I wouldn't think that alternative to CC is the primary form of online transactions in any country, unless you're excluding debit cards from that category. At least not yet. And, just like everywhere else, there are countless payment methods that are not run through Visa/Mastercard in the US. Zelle, ACH, Direct transfer, etc.

Here[1]'s an infographic for a report on the Dutch market for Q1 of this year. See the bottom right. iDEAL is by far the biggest payment method.

[1]: https://www.thuiswinkel.org/media/oyhhmgvy/infographic_thuis...

The Ideal platform is essentially an agreement between banks to process payments from a trusted, third party processor, who collects fees from the seller.

What I just described is also what Visa and Mastercard are.

While the graphic might be nice marketing for Ideal, I wouldn't categorize it as separate from debit/credit card.

Exactly my concern, I'm basically looking to get a service provider that is as close to card networks or banks as possible. Not looking at which one is "pretty" at all. Willing to work with that provider to integrate them with my website

most banks offer their own gateways so that is as close to the "wire" as you can get.

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