135 new currencies at Stripe
stripe.com
stripe.com
I mean, the Brazilian Real? Literally almost no payment processors support that. And believe me, I've looked for them.
This is amazing news.
(As a side question, if anybody from Stripe is listening here: how exactly is this done -- via partnerships with local banks, or via dynamic currency conversion? I ask because, in the case of DCC, you will find that there are big problems involved with Brazil specifically, and many legitimate transactions will be refused. Brazil is a very special case, and calling the BRL a supported currency could mean very many different things.)
But it is still amazing that BRL is supported at all, given the insane regulations.
I'm guessing that this will still be charged in dollars, but still its very impressive!
The official rate is 11.3 Bs/$ (or 6.3 depending on what exchange the govt decides you fall under.)
The black market rate today closed at around Bs.85/$
I'm guessing the only way to pay through Stripe with a venezuelan card is one which is approved by the govt to spend their alloted yearly $300.
Even without this conversion, you can always (try to) accept payments denominated in U$ from people with Brazil-issued (or Uzbekistan etc) cards. Say you charge 10USD for a product. You get paid (10-fees)USD. Later the issuing bank will convert (say) 10USD into 20BRL and the customer will pay in BRL as usual. But the customer doesn't know beforehand what is the exact exchange rate, so at the time of the purchase they don't exactly how much it will cost them in BRL.
With currency conversion, you can instead charge some of your customers in BRL. In this case, the customer knows exactly how much the cost will be in BRL. Instead, the USD value you get becomes variable. But this doesn't solve the problem of Brazilian (or Uzbekistan) banks denying the payment (due to fraud prevention or because they aren't connected to Stripe's acquirers or whatever), and it doesn't solve the problem of accepting payments via Stripe as a Brazilian-based merchant.
(To be clear, this is not a critique of Stripe)
So let me get this straight - a US based company can accept UZS (Uzbek Sum) payments from clients in Uzbekistan and Stripe will convert the UZS funds into USD?
I DO NOT BELIEVE THIS!!!
What are the strings attached? Any limitations?
I mean Uzbekistan has one of the most messed up economies in the world. Only here a used car costs more than a new car (I am not kidding) and Uzbekistan practically has non-existent conversion. People usually use black market to convert UZS to USD.
Thus, I cannot believe you pulled it off. And if you did do it, who do I talk to at Stripe to find out the details and rates?
In Argentina used cars cost more than new ones as well, because new ones are often "vaporware" and take months to actually deliver. Both Venezuela and Argentina use the black market too (Venezuela being far worse than Argentina)
I see the same happens in Uzbekistan :) :
http://www.eurasianet.org/node/67469
Edit: see rafaelm's comment about Venezuela
https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=rafaelm
I live in Uruguay but we have to deal with Argentina's problems (next-door neighbour and 3rd biggest trade partner), and Venezuela is an important trade partner, so we're very aware of their problems.
I think you mean £1.
p.s. I absolutely LOVE stripe. In particular as a European micro-business, the activation process for accepting real payments was a breeze. Compared to pretty much all other competitors who force a very long and bureaucratic process just to get started.
Very excited.
This is because these are British dependencies or have a special relationship with the UK but at the same time are independent.
(IANAL, this is my lay understanding and is provided for entertainment only and should not be taken as legal advice, etc:)
Legal tender means you cannot claim a debt remains unpaid if you were offered repayment in the form of legal tender. So if I owe you £1000, you could in principle refuse to accept Scottish notes if you chose to and maintain that the debt stands (although that would be pretty crap of you, and you must accept the English notes after I've changed them at the bank).
Retailers are allowed to accept pebbles in exchange for goods if they want, and would normally accept Scottish notes on this same basis (they want your business). I believe they could even refuse to accept legal tender: a retail transaction is considered to be making a contract rather than repaying a debt and therefore has little to do with legal tender (see also: 'invitation to treat').
I also suggest that retailers in London accept Scottish notes almost without exception.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_tender#United_Kingdom
In either case, this is really awesome. What sets this apart from Stripe's competitors, is that those companies (or at least Braintree) require you to set up a different account for each currency, which is a huge pain in the ass. Or at least this was the case last time I checked.
Our direct payouts product (https://stripe.com/blog/send-payouts-with-stripe) is currently US-only, but we're working on expanding it.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=pc
Thanks for using Dogecoin!
I've integrated with Stripe several times now for US-based clients and am getting severely jealous!
Both, but mostly the latter. It's been.. how many years since you started? And the whole damn world has wanted to use Stripe HOW bad? :P
.. So yeah. What's taking so long? Why aren't you everywhere already? Anywhere you go, there will be lots and lots of businesses just desperate to use Stripe, right? It would make sense for you to spread everywhere as soon as humanly possible, but you've always been strangely silent about what's keeping you from doing exactly that.
I know it all boils down to: "Because governments are making it difficult for us to start serving new countries". But I do want more details.
1) Decide country 2) Hire finance lawyer for that country 3) Deal with banks / APIs 4) Make applications to governments etc.
Give us some example timeline based on past experience etc for each step, maybe with some anecdotes when Stp X was particularly difficult /easy with country Y.
How about all of EU countries?
An alternative to www.nets.eu and PayPal would be great.
the joys of being a small market...
I did a test charge and was pleasantly surprised to find that Stripe's "market rate" is really the mid market rate and not something else. PayPal's spread is something like 2.5% and then there is sometimes (always?) a 1% cross-border transaction fee, so Stripe's flat 2% fee is looking pretty good.
Nicely done.
Been following-up with @sw (at Stripe Australia) on USD support for months now, but still waiting to see any indication.
Edit: Sorry, this isn't reddit. So: Yes, it shows that serious people doing serious business still aren't really that interested in Bitcoin.
One of Bitcoin's big selling points is "seamless international commerce". If a company (ie, Stripe) makes it painless to let customers pay in whatever currency they have, doesn't that advantage for Bitcoin go away?
Another selling point is that BTC you can own while USD/EUR/RUR/CNY you cannot. Fiat currencies are always under control of the banking system and ultimately at the mercy of the central banks. "Bail outs", "bail ins", "QE", "haircuts", "freezing accounts" etc. are all effects of not being able to hold your own money. You can hold physical gold, but it's not portable or easily divisible. Bitcoin allows holding any amount of wealth, be it $1 or $1000000 even inside your brain. It's much easier to meddle with your savings in USD/EUR than in Bitcoin.
Depends how rich you are. UK median annual income works out about 1 kg of gold, which is perfectly portable.
(Of course, the authorities might regard you with suspicion for carrying that much gold, but that's another issue.)
The ideal behind Bitcoin that I find appealing is its decentralized nature. Stripe lacks this feature so I deny its future viability.
Quick but obvious follow-ups:
1. How do we look up the currency conversion rates that were applied for each charge? There are various hints on the Stripe page about these new currencies[2] but looking at the corresponding API documentation either I'm missing something or it hasn't been updated yet.
2. Are there any plans to support payment methods beyond the existing card schemes, at least in countries where those cards might not be the preferred form of payment? (For example, there are various European national card schemes like Carte Bleue in France, and in China there is the UnionPay system.)
2. We are working on supporting different payment methods, but have no immediate ETA on when these will be available.
Sorry, I'm definitely missing something then. Where in the response to that request does it show the conversion rate? I only see the amount, currency and fee information, which doesn't seem to be any different to what looking up the original charge already told me.
If it helps, I didn't see anything in the API documentation to suggest that the currency in the balance transaction (which is type of a Stripe record we don't understand and have never had to consider before) would be different to that of the charge. Checking the API Reference page as I write this, it currently refers to "pence" in the left-hand column when describing the amount and fees, even though the example in the right-hand column says "usd", and it gives no description at all for the currency field.
A quick clarification in those API docs, including an explicit mention that balance transactions are operating in terms of your pay-out currency where charges are in terms of your pay-in currency, might help a lot here. I imagine this, along with how to navigate from a charge to the corresponding balance transaction, will be FAQs for anyone implementing multiple currencies...
Stripe has been in beta in the Netherlands for a while now, but with credit card only, choosing between Stripe and old school payment providers (which aren't half as bad as what is apparently is the case in the US) that support all of the most used payment methods, Stripe is really not an option.
Not unless I want to tell 80% of all clients to take their money elsewhere.
Awesome. I see Naira. Phew! :)
So if I make my charge in Naira, how do you pay me in Naira considering Nigerian banks are yet to be supported. Of course same question apples to other non supported countries whose currencies are supported.
I had a project recently that I was researching that wanted subscription/recurring payments done in Indian Rupees. Found that because of banking regulations and I believe other issues, this was not doable.
Basically, from what I found there wouldn't be a way to run a subscriptions based website out of the US targeting India and Indian Rupee as the currency.