Stripe launches in Australia

Recently I attended the Stripe Australia launch at NAB HQ to kickstart the eloquent payment gateway’s debut in Australia.

It’s a welcome entry, at a time when the payment space in Australia could use a new player ready to take on the mounds of bureaucratic red-tap required to acquire credit card transactions through a bank in Australia.

Often clients consult with us on choosing a suitable payment gateway for their business and to date the choices have been simple:

1. PayPal

2. Complex and Costly (albeit full-featured) integrated Bank Payment solution

Paymate was also one of my favourite choices until recently when they decided to ditch their loyal client base in some industries (including us) in favour of a more industry-restricted and POS-centric solution.

The advantage of Stripe and it’s Australian early-mover competitor, Pin Payments – is the reduction in red tape required to process credit cards. Unsurprisingly this doesn’t come at the expense of security – rather than is bundled in as part of the package.

Conventionally acquiring Credit Card transactions required you to have all systems completely PCI Compliant. Whilst PCI Compliance is still a mandatory requirement for both Stripe and Pin Payments, businesses have the added convenience of outsourcing some of the more ‘risk adverse’ parts of these regulations to Stripe or Pin respectively.

This is achieved through the use of JSON API, which allows for cards to be sent once to the payment processor’s server and securely “vaulted”. In return a token-key is issued to the issuing website or system and all future transactions merely call the token to acquire a transaction, meaning the actual card data is not transmitted.

In addition, the use of SSL mitigates most of the initial risk in parsing the card data to the payment processor in the first instance.

This kind of solution is fantastic for recurring billing. In addition, the simple architecture of both Stripe and Pin as well as their expansive libraries and documentation provide for a simple, seamless and carefree integration with your website, system or application.

Our preference and gateway of choice is Stripe. Whilst both payment processors are similar in disbursing acquired funds (seven days from the date of the transaction except in the case of them being flagged for fraud), Stripe refunds any fees charged if you refund a payment to a client. Moreover, the fees to process VISA and MasterCard are lower with Stripe (1.75% + $0.30c vs 2.6% + $0.30c for Pin) and Stripe supports American Express out of the box (albeit at a less generous 2.9% + $0.30c fee).

Beware though, these gateways unlike PayPal are not subscribers to Alternate Dispute Resolution schemes such as the Financial Industry Ombudsman as they do not hold Australian Financial Services Licences. If you have a barney with them, you’re left to the courts and common law.

WooCommerce, a popular WordPress plugin for WordPress-based E-Commerce stores has a plugin available for both gateways. Stripe is more widely supported by online apps being a more well-known Sillicon Valley venture.

Happy Swiping.