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Comment by smickie | Hacker News Reader

It's payment systems that are supported. Not debit or credit cards.

My debit card is from Visa, and Visa is a supported payment system.

I think that's why he makes a point of saying American Express in the blog post too, it's one of the more obscure payment systems in the UK.

On a side note, I remember my mother, who runs a corner shop, giving anyone who pays on AmEx the evil eye because they have a higher merchant fee in the UK and it takes a few extra days to clear.

I wonder if Stripe UK have the same fees for AmEx...

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AmEx seems to high higher merchant fees pretty much everywhere, including the US!

It used to be a few extra weeks! Quite a few years ago I was buying an expensive (for me) watch in the UK. I asked if they took Amex, they said "yes". "What's it worth to use my bank card" I asked. I think they may have got a little flustered but the difference was £150 on an amount near £1000. It was the only real benefit I got out of having that card for about 15 years.

I recall when I worked for a big UK company we took our teams industrial placement students out to dinner at the end of their time with us (around 15 people)

The restaurant refused the company amex card of the team manager and one of the better off senior members of the team had to put it on his debit card and claim it back.

(I work at Stripe.)

Yep, we have the same fees for American Express transactions: 2.4% + 20p + VAT per successful charge.

Can you tell us the corporate structure of Stripe?

Does Stripe have "operations" in the Republic of Ireland?

Will Stripe shuffle UK sales/transactions through Dublin in order to avoid paying corporation tax in the UK?

Quite a lot of people in the UK are sick of companies coming across the Atlantic and playing international tax games.

I think if Stripe decided to base their EU operations in ROI it would be quite legitimate as their founders, the Collison brothers, are Irish.

If a company genuinely operates out of Ireland, sure.

The issue that's caused a lot of grief is that a lot of companies set up what pretty much accounts to shell companies in Ireland, with the bare minimal operations they can get away with, and route massive amounts of revenue through it in creative ways that have nothing to do with where the actual operations and revenues of the company are.

Especially the "double Irish with a Dutch sandwich" arrangement has drawn a lot of ire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Irish_arrangement

I know you havent mentioned anyone specifically. But companies such as Apple, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft employ hundreds if not thousands of people here.

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