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Comment by davesmylie | Hacker News Reader

Every time I see yet another Stripe post on HN, I get all sad all over again knowing they have no real plans to launch in NZ (or any other country afaik).

After a year or so of waiting they have expanded to only one other country (Canada), and they still completely avoid talking about future expansion other than a token "We are working on expanding into other countries" sort of answer =/

Very cool looking project, but looking more and more like it's never going to be able to used by the majority of the world... (ie any developers living outside of the USA).

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They're in a business and industry that is difficult enough to launch in a single country, have repeatedly stated their intention to expand, backed up their talk by launching in Canada and yet you say, "no real plans to launch in NZ (or any other country afaik)", "completely avoid talking about future expansion" and "looking more and more like it's never going to be able to used by the majority of the world"?

There are reasons the options are poor; consider those and be patient. The fact that they're even thinking about expanding at this point is impressive enough, considering the hurdles.

I'm sorry. It's really frustrating for us too. To the extent it helps, Canada is very much just a first step for us. We're actively working on a number of countries—including New Zealand specifically.

There are 43 countries[1] with more English speakers than New Zealand. What led you to work on NZ first, rather than say, India or Philippines?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-s...

EDIT: Many of these countries aren't as "online" as the ones with Her Majesty on their money. But, I should add India scores better on the "number of Internet users" scale than the UK, NZ or Canada.

India should theoretically be the next stop for any startup wishing to expand into other English-speaking markets.

Other factors like the country's legal system are also important, especially for a business that is going to be tightly regulated in most places.

Is Asia being considered at this point? I would expect the English market to be top priority but I'm sure there are at least a few Japanese and Chinese developers who would love to start using Stripe...

Just wondering (*hoping) the UK is in that small list of countries too?

Yeah, Patrick has mentioned that they're working on the UK before. Makes sense, it's the next-biggest English-speaking market after Canada.

As a stereotypically humble Canadian, I feel compelled to point out that UK is an even bigger and more English-speaking market than Canada.

Canada is a decent pilot market for the UK, since the Queen is on our money and we misspell words the same way as the UK...

With apologies to Her Majesty, Canada has more progressive banking regulation.

Ah you're totally right. The UK has almost twice the number of Internet users.

I would hazard a guess that the English Speaking Internet User population of India is likely higher than the UK as well.

And Nigeria has the largest population of English-speaking nobility.

It took me three reads to get that. Well done good sir.

I don't get that (Nigeria has the largest population of English-speaking nobility.)

Someone care to explain?

Hello Winter_Blue Sir. I am Prince Whatusername, a member of the Nigerian Royal Family and I am sending you an email to tell you the good news. I have recently come into a large sum of money (10,000,000 US Dollars) and I would like to share some with you..........

How can you say it's "looking more and more like it's never going to be able to be used by the majority of the world... (ie any developers living outside of the USA)." when they just finished their first expansion.

Now that they've got a system down for expanding, they don't have to do so much work next time. Though every country will still have it's own set of rules and regulations regarding the finances, you must crawl before you can walk, yet alone run.

I have no idea how long it took Paypal to reach as many places as it has, but we have no reason to doubt Stripe will get there too.

> Now that they've got a system down for expanding

I don't think they do since every single expansion is going to be pretty much unique due to the laws and regulations of the country they are expanding to. That is the main problem they have to face and the reason for their 'slow' expansion.

I am sure they can streamline a few small things but I doubt they will be able to speed up things that much.

With a growing startup ecosystem (500 startups being officially here, for example) and very few payment solutions (for example, Paypal only offering Payments Standard), I thought I'd just drop in to inquire about Mexico on the short list for expansion.

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