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Comment by anurag | Hacker News Reader

(I work at Stripe.) I'd think of Stripe as more than just credit card payments. We already accept bank transfers in private beta in the US and would obviously love to expand this to other countries once it's ready. That said, it turns out credit card payments make up 60% of online commerce in Japan [1], so we figured we'd start with that!

[1] http://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Consumers/Japan-credit-card-...

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> We already accept bank transfers in private beta in the US and would obviously love to expand this to other countries once it's ready.

I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts on what Stripe would offer in Japan in terms of being a bank transfer mediator. Unlike the US, bank transfers here are very simple and routine -- you can perform them at almost any ATM or online, and providing that they're done within business hours, they're virtually instant. Setting up recurring transfers is also simple and routine.

They are also expensive. Usually $6 per transaction IIRC when I used to pay my rent.

Here in Thailand, instant bank transfers at any ATMs cost about 25 baht— roughly $0.75 USD per transaction.

With such an easy method of sending money between people, it's extremely handy. Compared to what I'm used to in Canada, only thing that comes close is e-interac payments via email which is still a pain.

That still seems expensive to me, since such transfers are free for personal customers in the UK.

Looking at the business charges at Barclay's, the transfer is either 35p ($0.55) or free, depending on the account.

Sounds super expensive.

It depends on the bank. Mine gives me 5 free transfers per month and then it's 300￥ per transfer after that.

We wouldn't be a bank transfer mediator; we'd be how developers quickly and easily integrate bank transfers (and credit cards, and Bitcoin, and Alipay...) into their apps. From what we hear this isn't terribly easy to do right now.

In Poland wire transfers are inexpensive (often free), simple, settled three times a day and common for online transactions. There are still thriving intermediaries like PayU. They're popular because they make integration easy and handle various kinds of instant payments under the same API.

Any chance of more esoteric payment methods like convenience store payments?

Is there a way to get included in the ACH beta?

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