Stripe

Published: 23/06/2016 - Updated: 23/06/2016 - Tags: Payment Methods

Stripe is an online payment service based in Ireland that allows for both individual users and businesses alike to complete transactions online.

Stripe is primarily focused on payment logistics-- the technical, security and banking systems that make online payments possible. The improvements Stripe has made to the online payment process has quickly allowed the company to gain ground on more established online payment companies such as Paypal.

History of Stripe

Stripe was founded by brothers John and Patrick Collison in 2010. The startup originally called itself “/dev/payments”, but the unique name led to an incredible amount of confusion and misspellings for those outside of the organization. The new company quickly rebranded under the current name, Stripe, with much success.

The rapid growth of Stripe is largely attributed to CEO Patrick Collison’s ability to secure several significant investments from groups such as Y Combinator and Sequoia Capital. Stripe would receive a $2 million USD investment from Peter Thiel, Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz. This initial injection of capital was followed up by an $18 million USD investment by Sequoia Capital nine months later. At the time, Stripe was already valued at over $100 million USD. The following September, Stripe would go public.

Stripe continued to receive investments after its public offering. Within the first year, Stripe received a $20 million USD injection of capital from General Catalyst and a group of venture capitalists. Stripe would use these funds to eventually acquire Kickoff, a chat and task management application.

Stripe Features

Stripe is “built for developers” and in turn, offers simple and easy to implement API’s for commonly used web development platforms such as curl, Ruby, Python, PHP, Java, Node and Go. Developers interested in learning more about the Stripe API and how it operates can take a look at the source code available on Stripe’s website.

Stripe.js, a specially developed JavaScript extension also exists to provide developers with a way to take total control of their site’s payment processing. Using Stripe.js, developers can ensure that payment details collected via the site will be transmitted securely to Stripe servers for processing. When using Stripe.js, the site owners also handoff troublesome compliance issues to Stripe.

Not interested in developing a payment form from Scratch? Don’t worry, Stripe also offers a new feature called “Stripe Checkout”. Developers also have the option to utilize the ready-made payment solution provide by Stripe. This simple payment solution works great on both the desktop and mobile platforms and stays up to date without any additional coding by the site developers.

Building a mobile app? Stripe also offers native libraries for both iOS and Android that allow for an easy mobile transactions. Mobile developers can even implement technologies such as Apple and Android Pay with minimal additional code.

Stripe Security

Stripe complies with industry standard PCI-DSS requirements and developers can make their sites just as secure by using Stripe.js to develop payment forms or by using any of Stripe’s mobile APIs. A major benefit of using the Stripe platform is that sensitive user data is not stored on the site. Instead, all payment information is processed by Stripe on its servers. This way, Stripe is responsible for security compliance.

Thousands of businesses have already trusted Stripe with the security of their data. Stripe is certified PCI level one. This is the most stringent of security standards in the industry today. In addition to already strong security technology, Stripe also provides optional two-factor authentication.