I like to think Stripe put $50B in a paypal account, and they got locked out with no way to get it back.
Hoasi 21 hours ago [-]
Haha, classic, sounds almost plausible, as anyone using PayPal painfully knows.
wkoszek 23 hours ago [-]
PayPal might still be the sweetheart, but there's no innovation I feel. With eBay having CC support and being able to charge and return a charge back to the card, PayPal now is in a niche. I'm helping a founder recruit. To handle the load of candidates, we give folks applying some $ for doing a small 1hr project, and Claude told me that PayPal may still be universal way of sending a "gift amounts". I often wonder how much work would it be to bring IBAN accounts to the US. The need for Zelle baffles me, and the fact that person A can't send $ to person B via normal bank infrastructure is interesting.
DarmokTanagra 23 hours ago [-]
Who considers PayPal a sweetheart?! PayPal is by far one of the most heinous companies I have interacted with on a regular basis.
Outside the US many banks offer simple QR payment options, the direct transfer difficulties US citizens encounter that make services like PayPal and Zelle necessary are entirely self imposed.
chneu 22 hours ago [-]
PayPal is Intuit of the payment processor world.
Paypal has actively lobbied for legislation(or lack of) in ways that has hurt American consumers.
charlieyu1 19 hours ago [-]
I still remember the old days where Paypal was the only reasonable option to send money internationally
Grazester 16 hours ago [-]
Paypal? Never heard of such. Western Union seems to be the most reasonable especially for third "world countries" where some people don't have a bank account. Even with their fees
AdamN 22 hours ago [-]
Agree that nobody considers it a sweetheart but you're wrong on the ex-US issue. Paypal is big in Germany for instance and I literally know nobody who uses Paypal in the US (maybe for eBay stuff??)
noxvilleza 19 hours ago [-]
Part of this is just the banking here in Germany being so bad. Fast ('instant') transfers are relatively new for many banks, online banking has always been quite poor/limited, and many of the cards they used to offer were Girocard (or Maestro) and didn't work with online retailers. Paypal has always been a great buffer to those problems.
MrGilbert 18 hours ago [-]
Well, to be fair, even for many customers 'instant' transfers are new. Even if their bank offers them for months now. Some folks still consider 'online banking' a novelty.
noxvilleza 14 hours ago [-]
In 2015 when I still lived in South Africa, you could do near-instant online transfers - but there is/was a cost involved (I think about $0.45 for transactions under $250). Online banking was super common then, I imagine it's become even more so in the last 10 years. I was quite shocked by how outdated the German banking system was, although it's definitely improved in many ways in the last decade.
FireBeyond 1 hours ago [-]
Even in 2006, in Australia you could do interbank transfers with near instant availability (certainly within 60s), usually for free.
Philadelphia 17 hours ago [-]
That’s interesting, because every time there’s something about a money transfer service, there are a ton of posts saying “Oh, the United States is so backwards, in Europe you could do this forever.” Apparently, by Europe, they mean the particular place they happen to live in.
mint5 15 hours ago [-]
Europe isn’t a monolith and some countries are weird about cards. Here’s two examples.
In Germany, cash is strongly preferred or was the last time I was there a few years ago.
In Norway, cash is nigh nonexistent.
Don’t mistake Germany as representative of the median European country when it comes to card transactions.
wewxjfq 12 hours ago [-]
Trite comment. Debit/credit cards never took off in Germany because everyone had a Giro card that worked perfectly well for cashless payments. And for online payments, PayPal filled the gap quick enough. The average German saw no reason to request a Visa/MasterCard from their bank for a heavy fee when PayPal did the job. That's also the difference: Germany never had the "Here, have a free credit card" culture.
Symbiote 12 hours ago [-]
A Giro card is a debit card.
subpixel 18 hours ago [-]
In 1995 I could give anyone in Germany my PostBank konto number and they could “wire” me money by calling the bank.
In 2026 I pay contractors working on my US house by logging into my bank and instructing it to mail a paper check.
The only exception is Venmo which everyone expects will be enshittified.
pimeys 21 hours ago [-]
Probably not very long. Multiple companies, including Amazon, started supporting Wero for payments. And most banks already support it. You scan a QR code or open a link that opens your bank app, show your fingerprint, see the amount and which account and to who, and you approve. Very easy and costs nothing to the seller nor the buyer.
Next year we'll get this in the physical stores...
tetec1 20 hours ago [-]
You’re overestimating their ability to change. I still regularly have to pay in cash in many businesses here in Berlin.
Wero is a great start but I suspect that PayPal will stay around for many more years.
icantevenhold 19 hours ago [-]
At the same time you’re underestimating it.
Before covid almost no small businesses would offer card payment; now it’s common.
Sure there are some that are against digital payments and they won’t accept Wero neither, but I would argue the number is very small.
And sure in bars/clubs/nightlife it’s cash only but that also won’t change - it’s for tax reasons.
People don’t like PayPal and only use it for the lack of a better alternative.
EC is widely used and I bet that Wero will be as well.
Source: lived last 15 years in Berlin
19 hours ago [-]
sajithdilshan 18 hours ago [-]
As a principal I boycott places that only accepts cash in Berlin. There is absolutely no reason for them to accept money only in cash in 2026, except for tax evasion and money laundering
michaelt 17 hours ago [-]
> There is absolutely no reason for them to accept money only in cash in 2026,
When I was young, cash was beloved by some as a matter of principle because of the fact you didn't need any authority's permission to accept it; coupled with its anonymity.
If you were running the city's only LGBT bookshop, you didn't want your till full of signed, dated checks - and card processors wouldn't do business with you even if you wanted to accept cards.
sajithdilshan 17 hours ago [-]
I don’t mind if they accept cash, but my problem is that some places ONLY accepts cash. That’s purely to evade taxes
fc417fc802 14 hours ago [-]
Or perhaps it's a matter of principle. They think that digital payments take society in a dangerous direction so do their part to push back against that and raise awareness.
sajithdilshan 13 hours ago [-]
Yeah right. For profit businesses being altruistic and moral. Delusional much?
fc417fc802 10 hours ago [-]
I didn't realize that obtaining a business license caused one to immediately lose sight of his core values and morph into a comic book villain.
deaux 10 hours ago [-]
There are tens of thousands of those, yes. Pretending these don't exist, edgy nihilism much?
15 hours ago [-]
Symbiote 17 hours ago [-]
What about a principled stance that a payment should remain anonymous, without being logged by a domestic bank, let alone a foreign company.
I used to go to a bar in Copenhagen with that principle.
sajithdilshan 17 hours ago [-]
Read my comment again. I said I boycott places that only accepts cash. They can absolutely accept both cards and cash and the only reason they do that is to not pay taxes. I would rather everyone pay taxes without any exceptions
Symbiote 16 hours ago [-]
I understood it.
The bar with the privacy principle didn't accept cards, and had a sign to that effect on the bar.
porkpieshoe 13 hours ago [-]
I understood you clearly. You were stating that you're a judgmental, closed-minded little asshole who jumps to conclusions, who dismisses other explanations even when they're offered clearly.
So to be clear: no issues with understanding or reading... I simply don't respect you as a person based on what you wrote.
sajithdilshan 13 hours ago [-]
Comment that with your real account coward instead of using fake accounts. Who gives a shit about respect from spineless cowards like you
7 hours ago [-]
graemep 16 hours ago [-]
What about costs? For low margin businesses, especially small ones, the cost of card payments is significant.
sajithdilshan 13 hours ago [-]
Was true in 2016, but not in 2026.
lazide 16 hours ago [-]
Privacy.
Stalkers.
Abusive ex’s.
And if you think it’s assholes targeted this way, look at all the women being stalked via flock by cops.
And if you think finances aren’t abused the same way, why do you think the Germans are so worked up about this? The fucking stasi.
A certain type of person will use literally anything they can find against you, including to harass you if they literally can’t find anything you did wrong.
And what better for them than a nice list of all the places and people you have some kind of important vendor or business relationship with - which is why there is money changing hands.
Grocery stores. Gas stations/subway fees, rental payments or mortgage payments. restaurants, gifts or family transfers, work, you name it.
sajithdilshan 13 hours ago [-]
I don’t know who traumatised you, but you need therapy, not cash payments
lazide 11 hours ago [-]
Cash payments are great therapy.
Also, ask an older German if you think I’m kidding.
inemesitaffia 18 hours ago [-]
Likely casual tax fraud
master-lincoln 19 hours ago [-]
What, why would you need Wero for that? That would just be an EPC-QR-Code using SEPA. Wero is just some cancer in between to sniff off user emails and phone numbers in my eyes.
johannes1234321 18 hours ago [-]
Since banks want a product they can sell.
The European Central Bank is working on regulation regarding the "Digital Euro" which is a bit in a marketing hype loop using block chain and other terms as a hype, while fundamentally trying to come up with a Euro-Zone-Wide approach to create a mostly anonymous digital currency, with some offline capability. If they come up with a final working concept paper, this would become legally mandated with low charges.
Wero is a product by banks, trying to be faster. Trying to have an established platform under their control, which is well established before ECB is ready with D€.
franciscop 22 hours ago [-]
Within Spain it has virtually dropped to zero among my friends since transfering money is trivial now:
- Bizum for national transfers, you just need someone's number (which you usually have through WhatsApp) representing 90% of instant payments
- SEPA payments also make bank transfers free and trivial for your European friends
ricardobayes 22 hours ago [-]
A tongue in cheek comment from me is that in Spain we have all this beautiful infrastructure but no money to send. I would rather have money to send via a slightly more inconvenient infrastructure.
MachineMan 20 hours ago [-]
Europe has Wero and India has UPI. Right now it is still good but it will get increasingly harder for private companies like Stripe and Paypal to operate as this becomes more embedded as a critical public service provided by governments.
fodkodrasz 20 hours ago [-]
Certainly, if your definition of Europe is Belgium, France and Germany.
> Wero is a product of EPI Company SE
> Available in Belgium, France and Germany.
Greetings from the rest of Europe.
bkor 18 hours ago [-]
It's basically the better version of iDeal, used heavily in Netherlands. They're slowly changing the iDeal name to Wero. Apparently it's mostly that, change of name coupled with a bigger scope.
MachineMan 20 hours ago [-]
You are right, however they are backed by the european payment initiative and the idea is that it becomes an eu wide standard. Whether they will succeed and how fast, we shall see.
fodkodrasz 18 hours ago [-]
I'm not happy this is not an ECB project, but commercial banks are behind. I'm sceptical if this will stay free, and on how our transaction data is used.
carlosjobim 18 hours ago [-]
No. Card payments offer fraud protection for customers, so they will still be there for online shopping.
pantulis 22 hours ago [-]
The euro payment scenario has changed drastically in the last few years and it's a good thing for customers: yesterday I was able to pay a US company with Bizum through Stripe.
jarym 22 hours ago [-]
100%. They had a place back when banks barely knew what the internet was.
But I think their time has passed.
dgellow 20 hours ago [-]
Paypal is huge in Germany, it’s pretty much the standard online payment method.
lnsru 20 hours ago [-]
Käuferschutz! Safety for the buyer is amazing. I love PayPal, some incident and I have my money in no time back. No endless back and forth with stupid bank clerk. PayPal costs money, I would ditch it for a discount sized as Paypal fee though.
rcxdude 20 hours ago [-]
No-one likes them, but they're pretty hard to replace if only due to network effects.
dgellow 20 hours ago [-]
From my personal experience PayPal is actually liked in Germany, people want PayPal for payment because they don’t want to give their bank details or don’t have a credit card. I’ve only ever seen people complain about the company online
hvb2 20 hours ago [-]
> because they don’t want to give their bank details
What's the problem with sharing your bank details? I don't consider those a secret at all. And if they were, chances are they've been compromised somewhere anyway.
AnthonyMouse 19 hours ago [-]
The banking system in some countries (including the US) does regard that information as secret. This is, of course, fully insane and the only reason it persists is that the regulatory institutions in those countries are too intransigent to switch from their >100 year old technology to some merely 50 year old technology like public key cryptography.
Or even backward-compatible changes like requiring banks to give customers virtual account numbers that they can give to different merchants/people and turn on and off.
dgellow 16 hours ago [-]
It’s not considered a secret, it’s just something people don’t feel comfortable entering in forms online. That feels a bit too personal, and is simple to enter wrong. A middleman makes that process a non issue. It’s also nice to be able to change banks or have multiple accounts without having to care about online payments details, you just pick in the middleman setting the one you want to use. For example I had an account frozen for an incorrect inkasso (that was eventually retracted), I was glad I could just ask a friend to send me something to PayPal as a way to do online payments.
The abstraction of the middleman makes sense to me for some types of payments, I find bank accounts a bit too low level sometimes.
hvb2 17 hours ago [-]
That's fine, but if I give you my IBAN and name on the account, you can only send money to me...
Well and commit actual fraud/identity they by forging my signature maybe... But we don't see that happen on a large scale because it just isn't feasible/worth it. We would see it otherwise as I'm sure there are plenty of datasets with those pieces of info to be bought..
fwn 19 hours ago [-]
Unless you set up something like a brick-and-mortar Trustpilot competitor, you are likely to only ever read online about user feedback on anything. But this does not say a lot about the quality of the feedback.
I am always surprised that people use PayPal for privacy reasons. The company shares a lot more of your information with third parties than a SEPA transfer or card payment would.
conorcleary 14 hours ago [-]
lol only Peter & Elon do
conorcleary 14 hours ago [-]
....i'm referring to the university, the one that's oddly swallowing up other ones
/s
michaellee8 22 hours ago [-]
[dead]
mittensc 23 hours ago [-]
> Claude told me that PayPal may still be universal way of sending a "gift amounts
Meanwhile in china you just scan a qr code.
In europe you just send money to their IBAN or they send you a link
Instant payments, no commission...
betteryet 22 hours ago [-]
Many countries including European now have just scan a QR code. The EU payment scheme Wero is bringing that cross-border for EUR. Instant and very low fees.
xioxox 20 hours ago [-]
I don't use Wero, yet, but I'm not really convinced when I read about it. Firstly, it lets anyone lookup the name associated with a phone number or email address, which is a privacy nightmare. Secondly, only a single bank account can be used with a phone number or email. This just seems badly designed.
mgaunard 22 hours ago [-]
SEPA transfers are zero fees by law.
diogocp 22 hours ago [-]
No, they are not.
mgaunard 21 hours ago [-]
Just checked, by EU law, banks cannot charge more for a SEPA euro transfer than they do for a local transfer within your own country.
kakacik 20 hours ago [-]
... which boils down to 0 fees on any side for any transaction I've ever done, across quite a few countries in EU and to/from Switzerland. I don't think any sane retail bank dares to charge anything, people would migrate to competition in an instant.
Symbiote 17 hours ago [-]
I have an account in Denmark which charges for outgoing transactions, 3 DKK. (€0.40.)
I think I have the choice to pay a monthly fee, nominate it as my official account for receiving my salary, or pay for the transactions.
I choose the last option as it's a backup account, and I make perhaps 1 transaction per year.
ahartmetz 20 hours ago [-]
Some business accounts charge a 20 to 50 cent flat fee. I think mine does. Retail basically never, yes.
locallost 18 hours ago [-]
Yes, this is pretty standard for business accounts.
tpm 18 hours ago [-]
there were some exceptions though, like in Greece, where banks charged for every sepa transaction. not sure if that's still the case.
ptman 22 hours ago [-]
And instant (under 10 seconds)
AdamN 22 hours ago [-]
Not by default. Deutsche Bank for instance makes you select it and I'm guessing most people are afraid that choosing instant means a fee so they leave it off.
wewxjfq 21 hours ago [-]
Most banks did charge a fee at first, so this rollout is partly to blame for the option being available and the hesitancy.
ahartmetz 20 hours ago [-]
There was another European payment system change to remove* the fees for real-time (official name) transfers, roughly a year ago. Together with the removal of international fees 10? years ago, it is indeed instant (if you check the box) and free across the EU now.
IIRC, real-time transfers commonly used to cost 50 cents (flat).
* Technically, they aren't allowed to cost more than regular transfers which cost 0 in ~all retail accounts
sho_hn 22 hours ago [-]
> In europe you just send money to their IBAN or they send you a link
You can, but at least in Germany people are reluctant to give their IBAN to others and prefer one degree of separation, so PayPal is still very common for transfers between friends.
jbstack 22 hours ago [-]
> in Germany people are reluctant to give their IBAN to others
Are they worried people might send them money without their permission?
stnikolauswagne 22 hours ago [-]
My wife recently filled out a SEPA-Lastschriftmandat for an account in my name and all she needed was my name, IBAN address and a signature. Name and Address is semi-public and signatures can be faked. I'm no financial criminal but I would be shocked if there was no attack vector that gets enabled from knowing an IBAN and a name.
Semaphor 22 hours ago [-]
The thing is, burden of proof is with the bank. For a lastschrift, you have 8 weeks to reverse it, if you didn't actually sign the Ermächtigung, you have 13 months.
Unless you don't care what transfers happen, that's pretty much always enough time
stnikolauswagne 21 hours ago [-]
I am not worried about the money staying gone forever and I have ample cash reserves, but I can imagine that someone who might have to worry about a bouncing rent wire or electricity bill would be more worried about their safety cushion potentially being gone until they get it fixed with their bank.
nh2 20 hours ago [-]
Justified fear. A former flat mate of mine reported an unexpected outgoing transfer to his UK bank and they blocked his account for 3 months. He was essentially unbanked. He had to pay his rent in cash after getting it from an ATM with a credit card (which cost a lot extra and hit limits). Resolving it took months even though we lived right next to a branch of that bank, where he went every day.
whstl 21 hours ago [-]
I had a situation where my mortgage took money from my account, but used the wrong company/reference name.
I didn't know what it was so I clicked a few buttons in the app and the money was back instantly.
That was on Commerzbank. Dunno if others are the same!
stnikolauswagne 20 hours ago [-]
The issue is more "I checked my account yesterday, I have 600€ on there, so I know the 150€ utilities bill due today is not an issue" and then a weird withdrawal happens and all of a sudden the utilities payment bounces. Even if i get the money back instantly once I notice it theres still the issue that now I have to deal with a bounced payment to a utilities provider.
hvb2 20 hours ago [-]
But no company cares about an occasional failed payment? That's part of doing business?
So they send a polite email informing you of it and you pay it a few days late?
No reasonable entity would charge late fees as that's a great way to anger otherwise perfect customers?
stnikolauswagne 19 hours ago [-]
But again, I am not talking about myself, im talking about the hyptothetical person who might not be the perfect customer. My in-laws have had their gas cut more than once because of non-payments, or were only allowed to keep the gas running because they told them "we will wire you the last 3 unpaid invoices at once on day x".
For me to personally end up in this situation the bank would need to somehow SEPA out like 2 years worth of mortgages at once in a short timeframe, which is not a realistic scenario.
lifestyleguru 21 hours ago [-]
In Germany you'd be afraid to reverse lastschrift because if by some accident it's legit, the companies like service providers will go berserk at you.
ahartmetz 20 hours ago [-]
It takes ~2 weeks to resolve and will cost you tens of Euros. The biggest threat is that they won't want to deal with you anymore, at least for a while. Happened to a flatmate of mine 15ish years ago.
lifestyleguru 20 hours ago [-]
I'm certain that it also involves receiving and sending a letter.
ahartmetz 17 hours ago [-]
Letters are why it takes so long, yes
stnikolauswagne 19 hours ago [-]
Pray its not a fax.
whstl 21 hours ago [-]
Paypal (as an example) only asks for the name and IBAN and they do identity verification themselves, by depositing (!) a small amount of money on your account.
But yeah, it's a very high-trust society. Of course any charge can be reverted via your bank app in seconds. But it's still a nuisance to have to check, so people are wary of giving it away.
lifestyleguru 20 hours ago [-]
It's not high trust society. In Germany service providers have easy and instant access to your bank account. Like TSA to your body on American airports. They absolutely don't trust that someone will voluntarily make monthly bank transfer, so I'd call it zero-trust system.
grimoald 22 hours ago [-]
The IBAN is also used for paying online by debit note. So somebody who knows your IBAN can theoretically buy stuff using your bank account. You can easily reclaim that money, but still there is hassle involved.
mittensc 21 hours ago [-]
> The IBAN is also used for paying online by debit note
How does that even work?
lifestyleguru 20 hours ago [-]
You open an account somewhere and when you pay they sneak in consent for direct debit with some dark pattern.
mittensc 19 hours ago [-]
there are notifications and approvals in bank apps now, they can't take the money until you accept there too and you can revoke from there as well
CodesInChaos 22 hours ago [-]
An IBAN can be used to take money via SEPA direct debit.
mittensc 21 hours ago [-]
I get notified of all SEPA direct debit requests and need to approve them, only for recurring payments.
Perhaps other banks don't do this and that is the problem.
herbst 22 hours ago [-]
Which is the problem. Why does something like this even exist?
darkwater 21 hours ago [-]
Because it's a convenient lower tech solution where you don't need to be a merchant with access to the debit card system to get monthly (or one-off) money, and it's easy to take or give back money.
As other comments say, it's also trivial to claim back a fraudulent charge, it's exposed directly in every online bank system UI.
herbst 21 hours ago [-]
In Switzerland the concept of a "Einzugsermächtigung" exists too, but it's a step or two more than just knowing your IBAN.
Basically you do this with your bank and not the other way around with the merchant.
Is it common to check all your banking stuff every month to make sure there is nothing fraudulent? I don't see how this is practical
mk89 19 hours ago [-]
In some MAJOR banks (not gonna say which one), the last digits of the IBAN are also used as username.
So basically people outside can lock your online account.
I am shocked by how F** dumb this was ever designed.
master-lincoln 19 hours ago [-]
a user name should not be something that needs to be kept secret. If that is the case, the bank fucked up in my eyes...
wewxjfq 21 hours ago [-]
In the early days of eBay I exchanged money exclusively via bank transfer and had no worries, but for me the Internet has changed and these days I use PayPal to send and receive money from strangers. I see it like this: My email address is already public, so I'm not risking anything when I share it with strangers. My IBAN on the other hand is only known to a few respectable companies, so why change that? Seeing all the online platforms store all your PII without hesitation, but keeping your IBAN only as ****** and handing it straight to a trusted payment processor always reminds me that it's not like the others. Yes, I know businesses put their IBAN on their letter head, but they also have accountants watching their transactions.
vincnetas 21 hours ago [-]
Yes, because you can also debit money from IBAN :) Without consent of owner. Not sure how this works.
t0mas88 20 hours ago [-]
If you have the right authorisation on a business account you can "direct debit" from any account. It let's you charge a bank account in a similar way as a US creditcard can be charged by number and expiry date. Technically the contract with your bank says you need to have a signed authorisation from the account owner to charge their account, but you don't have to show it to the bank before charging.
The money you get that way isn't guaranteed, the account owner could do a charge back. And if that happens you have to show the signed authorisation from the account owner. If you don't have it, expect your bank to terminate the direct debit ability.
bambax 21 hours ago [-]
I'm from Europe and like Paypal a lot for paying for things online; much easier than using a credit card.
Paying with CC: typing the 16 digits of the CC, expiration date, 'CVC', and then having your phone nearby for confirmation. Happens on a myriad of forms from various providers that may or may not save or log the CC number. Many times the text message doesn't arrive on time on your phone, which makes the transaction fail. Or you have reached your credit card 'limit' and the transaction also fails (without you knowing why).
Paying with Paypal: username and password (or password only if the username is saved), done. Happens only on the Paypal website. Funds are withdrawn immediately from your bank account if you want. Never fails.
cjrp 21 hours ago [-]
For me it's slightly more convenient than manually entering CC details, but still less convenient than Apple/Google Pay where that's supported.
ahartmetz 20 hours ago [-]
Same here, Germany. PayPal with immediate bank transfer is usually a little more convenient. I use CC more often anyway to avoid the middle man, but when I feel lazy (wallet is not on my desk, oh no) or there is any hassle with CC, I use PayPal.
sersi 18 hours ago [-]
I also love the fact that it allows me to use a US credit card on EU websites that would otherwise block me from using non EU credit cards (by detecting BIN).
bkor 18 hours ago [-]
iDeal/Wero is nicer I think. It just reuses your bank basically. And no need to trust Paypal. I've seen way too many bad stories about that company. Either dispute handling wise or how they handle customer data. With iDeal/Wero I do not need yet another account.
hvb2 19 hours ago [-]
I find it very interesting that on a site like this, someone advocates for payments with just a username/password.
This might work for you, but it's not a solution for less tech savvy/elderly people. These services are the easiest to scam people out of money on.
kakacik 20 hours ago [-]
European here, can't agree at all. Never, ever had the confirmation SMS not arrive. Even when I have literally 0 bars signal and just wifi, it just works here.
Those few buys per week I can enter CC numbers directly, I don't mind since its my money being spent. Don't need some questionable middle man if I can avoid that.
stefan_ 20 hours ago [-]
It's crazy how much they have enshittified credit cards. It's not stuff like CVC, that's fine, but all the random failures! Nothing will turn me off your "payment system" more than having it randomly fail on me for utterly incomprehensible reasons when I'm simply trying to pay. It's five times worse when you are traveling, buying some small items in a shop and have it fail at the register.
ghaff 18 hours ago [-]
I honestly don't know the last time I've had a credit card transaction fail, including internationally, unless I've fat-fingered some number. In fact, in my experience, random fraud failures are significantly less common than they used to be.
fc417fc802 10 hours ago [-]
Less common but they still happen and except for a few banks that have modernized the failures are still much more cumbersome to deal with than necessary.
Worse I had stripe trip on me the other day which resulted in a "card declined" message but when I logged into the bank to authorize there was nothing there. Because apparently stripe decided not to even notify the bank of the suspected fraud. Thus there was seemingly no way for me to correct the error.
I can't even use tap to pay without either a physical chip from the bank or proprietary software. We've had ssh keys and oauth since ~forever there's no excuse for any of this.
barrkel 23 hours ago [-]
For some reason PayPal is still quite big in Germany; about 28% of online revenue in 2025.
Also Austria, perhaps Italy, but I have less direct experience there.
patrickk 22 hours ago [-]
In Germany, it’s not uncommon for people to not have a credit card. For online purchases, it’s therefore easier to use PayPal at checkout because a direct IBAN transfer or debit card might not be accepted by the merchant. Also for splitting smaller amounts among friends and family (less of a moat because this could be done in principal by a SEPA transfer).
In other countries Revolut is popular for the friends and family bill splitting, in places like Sweden they have a PayPal-like solution offered by local banks. There’s an upcoming initiative by Brussels to bring all these national initiatives under one umbrella, which would definitely hurt PayPal’s German revenue in future.
jen729w 22 hours ago [-]
But you have a Visa/Mastercard, surely? A thing with 16 digits that you can plug into the Stripe checkout screen?
I have, but never use, a 'credit card'. The thing I use every day is a 'debit card', where the money comes straight from my account. But it still has 16 digits and Visa written on the front.
kuschku 22 hours ago [-]
In 2019, only 20% of Germans had a Visa/Mastercard. The vast majority of Germans used the German GiroCard network, as many vendors refused Visa/Mastercard due to the higher fees (2-3% vs GiroCard's 0.125%), and there was no real need for it. Even 2019 you had to pay 30-50€/year fee just for a debit MasterCard/Visa, as Germans rarely used them and rarely went into overdraft, so there was little profit to be made.
Since then MasterCard has tried to force banks into dropping GiroCard, by refusing to work with smaller banks that still support GiroCard, and by offering better conditions to larger banks that drop GiroCard.
This has increased the number of Germans with Visa/MasterCard, but it's still below 50%.
jen729w 21 hours ago [-]
Mind blown. Thanks. I'm British and I've had a debit card since I was 16 which is a loooooong time ago now, let me tell you.
Symbiote 11 hours ago [-]
The equivalent in Britain would be a Switch card in the 1990s, the UK's native debit card system.
In the UK, purchases made with a credit card are much more protected than a debit card.
If the supplier goes out of business / fails to deliver, the bank/credit card company is equally liable. A Section 75 claim is allowed for purchases between £100 and £30,000.
AFAIK, it's actually the "not-really-banks" that don't have Girocard: N26, Revolut, bunq, Vivid, Trade Republic, Wise, Tomorrow, Openbank.
All the traditional large ones seem to have AFAIK.
Off topic but I really hate N26 and its ilk. They don't really follow the German laws that say that German residents can have bank accounts, so they refuse people that are still on work visas, which is a pain in the fucking ass when you have a startup and the young employees are telling the immigrants "get N26" or something else, but the immigrants can't have it and only learn after submitting lots of docs to N26.
dgellow 20 hours ago [-]
How did you get N26 to check your visa? I’ve never seen that situation. They only ask for an address in Germany. I know so many people with n26 on work visa
whstl 4 hours ago [-]
Careful: Work Visa is not the same as Residence Permit.
They check during the KYC process via mobile phone camera, and will reject people without a residence permit (Aufenthaltserlaubnis, Blue Card, etc), and they claim several things, from "we don't accept work visas" to "I never saw this document in my life".
Legally, a work visa is an Aufenthaltserlaubnis according to § 4 AufenthG, so N26 is classifying it wrongly here.
But it gets worse because they're breaking § 31 ZKG, which says they're obligated to provide an account for everyone here legally. We have formally complained to BAFIN about it.
Just copied the above law paragraphs from an HR discussion, btw, this is a recurring issue...
And I know this from helping several others, since I'm the startup ecosystem. I'm European, but not German.
WA 22 hours ago [-]
Germany: Younger people yes, older people no. They wouldn't know the difference between credit and debit card and everything that looks like a credit card is an invention from hell and instant debt-spiral to them.
whstl 21 hours ago [-]
I do have a credit card for emergencies but I haven't used in years. It's in the drawer, I didn't even integrate it with Apple Pay.
My Girocard has Maestro integration, so I can use it overseas, but no number. Apparently this is gonna go away.
The Girocard naturally has ApplePay, which is what I use daily.
omnimus 22 hours ago [-]
What are you talking about - merchants not accepting debit cards? It's best option for them.
People used to use Paypal because they have only debit cards. But with better card security and alternatives like SEPA and Wero there is way less need.
Semaphor 22 hours ago [-]
Wero is just starting on B2C, many business accounts still don't offer it. Not yet comparable to PayPal when talking purchases.
sho_hn 22 hours ago [-]
> For some reason PayPal is still quite big in Germany; about 28% of online revenue in 2025.
Many Germans don't have credit cards (I don't), so PayPal is pretty convenient as it can withdraw directly from a SEPA account and enables online shopping.
Google Pay cannot do SEPA, but allows adding PayPal as a payment method, so PayPal also gets you into the Google purchase ecosystem.
Revolut with its virtual CCs has been making some inroads lately, though.
frigg 21 hours ago [-]
PayPal is the only real company to offer any meaningful support to customers targeted by fraud or in a real dispute with a company. Banks screw customers and for cards you are at the mercy of mastercard/visa and a long wait period for the dispute.
easyThrowaway 22 hours ago [-]
Paypal is somewhat common in Italy for lunch-money amounts, a few local alternatives are available (sumUp and Satispay mainly) but for anything more than 100€ everybody uses SEPA transfers.
rchaud 10 hours ago [-]
If a site has PayPal as a payment method, I'm using PayPal. It's a million times more convenient than punching my CC into yet another site.
I don't use mobile wallets. I've had a PP account since the time it was required to buy anything on Ebay.
The best feature it has is being able to cancel newspaper subscriptions without the hassle of calling and talking to a retention agent.
MASNeo 22 hours ago [-]
For as long as criminals believe they can hide in relative anonymity (e-mail, stolen CC and burner phone being sufficient authorization) and high volume of transactions PayPal will remain with us. It’s a great way to do small cash like transactions without going to crypto. Some crimes still need to source cash.
DarmokTanagra 22 hours ago [-]
I have had more money stolen from me by PayPal than any scammer.
DanielHB 21 hours ago [-]
US bank accounts don't have IBAN? I thought IBAN numbers were part of the whole Swift system that Russia got locked out of. Shows how much I know about this stuff...
kevin_thibedeau 23 hours ago [-]
Zelle is an ACH frontend. It is using normal bank infrastructure.
LoganDark 23 hours ago [-]
Zelle has absolutely never had anything to with ACH, because it's typically instant (within seconds). ACH tends to take hours to days.
pests 22 hours ago [-]
Technically yes, because Zelle is just the frontend, but banks can settle between themselves via ACH if they don't have another arrangement or a RTP (real time payment) setup.
To answer the original question, because Zelle is ran by a consortium of banks, they all trust each other enough to release funds immediately and settle up overnight if need be.
LoganDark 22 hours ago [-]
Zelle isn't the ACH or RTP though, is what I'm saying. Zelle is the real-time notifications and accounting, but the reason every bank needs to have bespoke support is because it's each bank's job to figure out how to do the actual funds transfers in the background after Zelle payments go through.
AdamN 22 hours ago [-]
I'm lovin' RTP. I've used it a few times between IBKR and Chase and it works very well, even for some hefty sums.
dv35z 22 hours ago [-]
The past several transactions I've done with Zelle, it has taken 3-5 days for the money to arrive. This was with a contact I sent money to before using Zelle (my brother), and also a new contact. I'm surprised because my experience has always been Zelle was instant. Has something changed with Zelle? The bank I am using is Ally.
LoganDark 22 hours ago [-]
Nothing's changed with Zelle AFAIK, but the time it takes depends on the sending bank, the receiving bank, the amount of money, the history of both parties, arbitrary fraud metrics decided by both banks and EWS themselves and some other things. Sometimes they just decide that your transfer won't be instant.
I mistakenly opened a Bank of America account last year, but they had so many fraud protections on Zelle it was nearly impossible to use without constantly getting transfers held up for days and having to make phone calls to banking support to approve transactions and verify my identity, and it was such an absolute nightmare I will never ever bank with them again or recommend them to anybody. The worst part was absolutely the phone calls, I could never dismiss or approve anything online I always had to make a phone call during business hours.
Then I moved to US Bank and they support instant Zelle transfers, recurring Zelle transfers (which both my credit union and Capital One didn't support!), approving fraud alerts online and more, the only way I could be happier with them is if they had less security theater (like Mercury) but I'll be moving to Mercury anyway once they support Zelle.
How does it compare to Wise/Payoneer and other existing payment transfer systems?
Jommi 21 hours ago [-]
Its on top and provides multieple different options and required reporting as well. Basically for any payout usecase it should be way better.
Hendrikto 20 hours ago [-]
> the fact that person A can't send $ to person B via normal bank infrastructure is interesting.
I would call that outrageous. It is my money. I earned it. I paid taxes on it. Let me fucking use it.
That is what I like about crypto. What I have is actually mine. I can send it to whomever I want at any time.
mrdoe 23 hours ago [-]
Wait what? How are you then going to send someone money?! If not through the bank? What special USA feature is this?
DarmokTanagra 23 hours ago [-]
Its crazy, every time I am in the US and a group needs to split a bill its a absurd debate over which third party payments provider to use.
I've even had people refuse cash because they want me to "venmo" them or whatever stupid app they prefer.
groestl 23 hours ago [-]
Isn't "split the bill" something that the restaurant does?
edoceo 22 hours ago [-]
Sometimes. In USA they may require one check for parties of >N (where N can be 6). Some (fancy) places won't split at all. Then consumers juggle apps to square up the deal.
chneu 22 hours ago [-]
Yes but a lot of people just use apps. It's weird.
Americans are super weird about dining procedures and expectations. Remember, we tip here. It's weird.
ricardobayes 21 hours ago [-]
Most of Europe tips too, and increasingly there is a service charge too (at least in the UK it has become standard now).
master-lincoln 19 hours ago [-]
According to this list it doesn't seem like most of Europe tips too
WTF, I want my payments to work, no “innovation” necessary.
locallost 18 hours ago [-]
PayPal is far far away from a niche, although this depends on the market. I work for a company in Europe selling physical goods and the vas majority of our sales online are paid with PayPal. The reason their future is not that bright is that things like Apple Pay and Google Pay are starting to eat their lunch because it's just that easy. You pay with e.g. Google Pay, verify your fingerprint and you're done. No logins, no typing, no stored passwords or credit cards that sometimes don't autofill correctly. So the writing is on the wall for the future, but they are still a money machine in the present day.
The only thing easier than paying with a fingerprint is not paying at all. So their lifeline could be agentic shopping where you don't even shop anymore if this can ever become a thing.
general1465 22 hours ago [-]
> I often wonder how much work would it be to bring IBAN accounts to the US
It is 2026, in USA people are not having access to IBAN in their bank accounts, usually they have to be personally present for international transfers out of their accounts and everyone have a checkbook.
Symbiote 17 hours ago [-]
IBAN is less adopted than I expected -- Europe, the Middle East and progressing in Africa, plus a few others.
Diligence told them they’re buying a almost dead payment processor with ancient tech. Customer lists are worth something but not that much.
sho_hn 1 days ago [-]
Curious to hear from someone who watches this space. What makes them dead?
It's still the only consistently supported thing I encounter online.
I'm aware things like Wero are poised to shake things up, but still have no real idea about timeline and impact.
fsuts 23 hours ago [-]
PayPal originally took off as it was convenient and fast, saving you from filling in card details each time and it also allowed sending payments for private transactions using only an email address
Since then Apple Pay/Google pay/browser wallets have taken a big chunk of its fast checkout advantage
And mobile banking apps/instant transfer have taken out chunks of the private transactions, and more so as consumer to consumer transactions often had the parties using PayPal gift mode to avoid fees but that then had zero protection.
The 2020’s is much more crowded than 1990’s and 2020’s decades
Also it was its partnership with eBay that made it dominant and eBay no longer promote PayPal as preferred payment method.
slv77 18 hours ago [-]
PayPal also allowed internet payments without requiring handing over credit card details to a third party. Handing your credit card number to every two-but e-commerce site pretty much guaranteed your card would be compromised. Today PCI requirements and tokenization reduce the risks substantially and Apple Pay and Google Pay add another layer of protection.
That estimates PayPal still has 40%+ online payment market share.
I'm assuming a lot of that is long-tail 'I put a PayPal link on my store in 2005' stuff, but I imagine those add up.
And they're also probably a sticky customer base, in the sense that anyone still using PayPal as primary today doesn't like changing things, which makes acquiring those customers worth it.
OrangeDelonge 1 days ago [-]
Are you in Germany by chance?
sho_hn 22 hours ago [-]
Yep.
AdamN 22 hours ago [-]
It is funny :-)
Moving to Germany from the US was like entering a timewarp. PayPal is still real??? People use it??
I get it now but it's a pretty big miss that GiroCard couldn't figure out how to displace them after all this time.
ricardobayes 21 hours ago [-]
Sometimes it's the other way around. Lockers for packages were first introduced in Germany (Packstation) then they were rolled out in the US almost a decade later.
Not having a lot of credit cards and the associated rewards is actually healthy. Research has shown lower social classes "pay" for the rewards due to paying the higher transaction fees. There was actually a relevant thread here a few days ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49432201 (How credit card rewards became a $9.2B wealth transfer)
sho_hn 21 hours ago [-]
:-)
Well, I used to live and work in South Korea for many years, so both DE and the US are about equally oldschool in my book :)
LoganDark 1 days ago [-]
The other consistently supported thing is card numbers. I generate virtual card numbers for every merchant, no need for some suspicious interloper. For non-recurring or one-off transactions -- new virtual card for each purchase.
nostrebored 1 days ago [-]
Maybe we’re doing different things or in different regions, but I rarely see pay with PayPal now.
qingcharles 1 days ago [-]
I see it absolutely everywhere still. We all exist in our own bubbles.
mjrbrennan 1 days ago [-]
Yes it's basically every website in Australia you can pay via PayPal now. I use it less and less since Apple Pay is available pretty much everywhere, but it can still be handy now and then.
bokkies 23 hours ago [-]
Popular in South Africa also and remains one of the very few credit card processors where you can bill in USD and remit in ZAR (no Stripe in SA)
distances 23 hours ago [-]
I see it all the time in Europe. Many German online shops have Paypal as the default payment method and may even process card payments through Paypal.
Also, it's often the way people transfer money between each other.
ifwinterco 22 hours ago [-]
Still see it sometimes in the UK, but if it's there often there's an extra fee to use paypal instead of card, so I doubt many people use it.
Card number is standard, with an increasing amount of places supporting Apple Pay (thankfully)
anonzzzies 1 days ago [-]
Luckily I haven't for years now. But might indeed be different regions.
fsckboy 24 hours ago [-]
>What makes them dead? It's still the only consistently supported thing I encounter online.
online is dead too, no app uses paypal, and plenty of online merchants take credit cards more than paypal; they even offer their own credit cards.
paypal hasn't innovated at all in over a decade, and people are scared of the way it will hang on to your money with little recourse.
chirau 24 hours ago [-]
"No app uses PayPal"
You have already lost your plot with that claim. Just because you don't use it doesn't mean it is not widespread.
cricalix 24 hours ago [-]
PayPal is, unfortunately, not dead. It's used by RMV in Germany for a start - only way to pay for a bus ticket in the app/website. No credit or debit card, straight up PayPal account.
sho_hn 23 hours ago [-]
> online is dead too, no app uses paypal
PayPal is the payment method I use for Google Pay, so pretty much everything goes through it.
(I don't have a credit card, which is common where I live.)
inigyou 1 days ago [-]
PayPal is still the default processor in so many places. That's got to be worth something. Every other time I buy something online, PayPal is the default option.
SXX 1 days ago [-]
What country are you living in?
AlotOfReading 1 days ago [-]
I see it everywhere in the US.
cbdumas 23 hours ago [-]
Can folks responding to this comment claiming that they see PayPal a lot provide some details? Country, industry, sector, something. I'm in the US and I basically never see it on e commerce checkout flows any more (and good riddance IMO).
Steve44 22 hours ago [-]
I'm in the UK and I use it a few times a month.
Generally I would use it on smaller / unfamiliar websites; I may be more hesitant about entering my credit card numbers but also it's quicker and easier as I can do it without getting my card out of my bag.
I also use it exclusively for eBay purchases.
pasc1878 20 hours ago [-]
Agreed but only if I can't use Apple/Google card.
So my usage is way down.
jen729w 22 hours ago [-]
I run an online store selling e-stuff. I offer Stripe by default, and a 'use PayPal' link on the side.
It accounts for about 20% of my sales. I was about to write 'overwhelmingly Europeans' and I thought I better check. Nope.
Row Labels Count of Country
---------- ----------------
United States 54
Germany 12
Australia 10
United Kingdom 7
Netherlands 7
kevin_thibedeau 23 hours ago [-]
It is still common on small e-commerce sites. The ones at high risk of being hacked where you don't want them to have your card details.
domh 22 hours ago [-]
Yeah this is my primary use case for using PayPal. I use it on e-commerce sites for first purchase or if it's unlikely I'm going to buy anything from the same site again.
herbst 21 hours ago [-]
In European online shopping it's very common for everything thats not ment for only one country.
Within Switzerland there is zero need for PayPal do you don't see it as much, but if you ship to Germany or Italy things start to get more complicated.
csomar 22 hours ago [-]
I don't see it as much as before but recently I had issues with paying z.ai with my card and the only payment alternative they have is PayPal. PayPal now requires an account with a verified phone number just to process your payment, so it's strictly a no-go for me.
I am guessing the millions of people they have on-boarded in the last decades are what makes the business worth something.
meerita 23 hours ago [-]
Most of the banks around the world are still running on old tech. Not so long ago I remember one was still using Cobol.
LoganDark 1 days ago [-]
I honestly wish they could've succeeded because PayPal is one of the banes of my existence. They're one of those faceless corporations that accuse everyone of money laundering in order to steal their shit.
anonzzzies 1 days ago [-]
They held and stole quite a bit of money from my company when it was small 'for fraud'; it was a very hard time, and of course there was no fraud. It was a long time ago and I don't get angry anymore, but it was a nightmare and nothing you can do. Since then I moved to local processing, issuing, acquiring; I can thank Paypal for all of that. Hope they die a miserable death, but I guess 50B$ says at least the managers will drive their lambo's/yachts around no matter what happens unfortunately.
chneu 22 hours ago [-]
Paypal stole over $10k from a Haitian charity drive we did. They froze the account and all the donations, then refused to refund people and offered "Donate to our charity instead" as an option.
It was bonkers.
LoganDark 22 hours ago [-]
You were collecting money for charity, and you're upset that PayPal... offered to donate the money to charity? Was it mixed with other funds?
inigyou 1 days ago [-]
Of course you can do something. You can sue PayPal.
anonzzzies 1 days ago [-]
Suing over borders. Did I mention small company? What would it cost me, in 2007, to sue a US company from my country in europe? With what chance of winning?
inigyou 24 hours ago [-]
They're actually a European company, or else they can't operate there. The European company is probably a subsidiary of an American one.
anonzzzies 21 hours ago [-]
Still not in my own country; I see they were in the UK back then; suing over borders inside the EU is still expensive and pretty much advised against unless it's a lot of money. It was for us, but not compared to this effort; anyway ; it was advised against back then. Maybe now it's easier.
kevin_thibedeau 23 hours ago [-]
You sue the European subsidiary which will be a regulated bank, unlike US PayPal.
KaiserPro 22 hours ago [-]
and how much would that cost vs the chance of it working?
general1465 21 hours ago [-]
It would be small claims court and they are being sued so much, that they don't even bother to show up in trials (courts are expensive goes both ways), so it is default win usually.
csomar 22 hours ago [-]
I am not sure about the year 2007, but in 2026, they need to be under your monetary authority somehow. That's why most crypto exchanges do not offer service in Europe. Your monetary authority might have a form or an email for complaint and depending on how pro-active they are, they can make the other counter-party very proactive.
LoganDark 23 hours ago [-]
Especially after they already stole all your money.
24 hours ago [-]
funlang 24 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
enos_feedler 1 days ago [-]
Elon bought a dead social network and look at him go! But seriously, I log into paypal once a month to pay my landlord. I am a MAU. That is crazy. It’s more then I can say for ABNB. Maybe they should buy Paypal. Save on those transaction fees.
SllX 1 days ago [-]
I wish Twitter had been dead when Elon bought it, but no, Twitter was far from dead. X actually has fewer MAU as far as I can tell[1], and I wouldn’t call it dead either.
[1]: Seriously though, I can’t find good data I trust on this so correct me if you’ve got a good source saying otherwise, or even if someone has something substantiating this better I would take that too.
darth_avocado 1 days ago [-]
The social network is more dead than when he bought it. Wouldn’t need the an acquisition first by an ai company and then a space company to hide its worth.
pjc50 21 hours ago [-]
Why can't you pay the landlord by standing order?
tyre 24 hours ago [-]
Makes sense:
> The takeover interest has helped it recover, with PayPal shares jumping more than 40% this quarter to give the company a market value of about $52.6 billion.
Seems like they tried to buy a struggling company and leaks of the talks made it too expensive.
johnwheeler 22 hours ago [-]
It's not a struggling company. I run an e-commerce website. I give people the option to use either Stripe or PayPal. I would say it's a 50 50 split. The company is making $5 billion in profit a year. What's wrong with people?
wongarsu 19 hours ago [-]
If I have a credit card, as a consumer Stripe and PayPal are about equal. Both let me pay with my card without making an account. Both will lightly nag me to make one, with the difference that Stripe Link is very light-weight and Paypal is a lot more heavy-weight. But in return Paypal allows more payment methods (direct debit from your bank account being a big pull here in Germany) and makes it possible to send money between friends. Also lots of people 30+ (which is the vast majority of the population) have paypal accounts from the "don't give random websites your credit card, give it to this one trustworthy website instead"-era.
If there weren't so many people hating PayPal, I'd expect a straight Stripe/Paypal choice to lean much more towards paypal, not a 50-50 split
weiran 21 hours ago [-]
> What’s wrong with people?
Confirmation bias.
altmanaltman 21 hours ago [-]
Yeah the "struggling company" is a bit too harsh of a statement. What they likely were talking about was the stock price. It was getting hit pretty hard and the Stripe deal talks saw confidence which led to the stock price getting back up and now the market value for the company is actually higher than what Stripe is offering in the deal so it doesn't make sense to sell lower at this point of time.
cubefox 19 hours ago [-]
None of that is remotely evidence that "struggling company" is merely "a bit too harsh".
shevy-java 21 hours ago [-]
This is kind of at odds with other reports.
cubefox 21 hours ago [-]
PayPal is very big in some countries.
analog31 17 hours ago [-]
Who uses PayPal any more? I do.
I have a side business that makes a gadget, akin to a guitar pedal. It has worked flawlessly for me, for well over a decade. Occasionally I casually search for an alternative (to have a backup) but have never found one.
PP lets me accept payments from a completely passive website. No code! While I love coding, maintaining an active web page is a cost. My IT costs are zero.
I think PP's buyer protections help my business too, by letting people feel confident that they can cancel a deal, and that I don't get any of their personal information except their shipping address. I don't want that information, and I don't want to be responsible for keeping it secure.
jmathai 1 hours ago [-]
I'm a customer of Stripe. But I prefer to pay using these in order - Apple Pay, PayPal, Google Pay, Stripe, enter card into site.
The Stripe interface with Link and whatnot is slick but it feels like I'm giving my credit card over to the merchant even though I know I'm not.
scrapcode 17 hours ago [-]
I absolutely drop quite a bit of guard if PP G&S is an option. A lot of that being because I have been on the other side (seller, selling digital goods such as dev and design) and have seen how quick PP is to yank those funds back.
Is that a good thing, or is it crazy that such a simple concept (if consumer claims they don't get a product, you provide proof of delivery or we take the money back) has been almost unique to PP for so long?
ekabod 17 hours ago [-]
In France, most online shops offer Paypal and I use it all the time.
ocd 1 days ago [-]
I've been wondering about this since it came up in my newsreader that they wanted to acquire PayPal. Seemed like odd timing to me given PayPal has been questionable but necessary in a lot of cases for online businesses in international payments.
In Canada, we use Interac for more ordinary payments between ourselves, and the usual credit cards through card processors like Moneris or bank provided services in physical stores. I can imagine fewer uses for PayPal as time goes on, especially with the accelerated change driven by geopolitics. Visa and Mastercard may be at risk internationally for other countries seeking to keep payment processing entirely in their own yard.
This matter in particular made me wonder how things will go for Stripe going forward with these policy changes that may impact credit cards.
I'd love to delete my PayPal account and never log in again, but the use case for me right now is mostly that companies (outside Canada, and outside NA in most cases) usually only accept payment with PayPal.
stefandesu 22 hours ago [-]
I've deleted my PayPal account last year and haven't regretted it. Admittedly it helped a lot that I live in Norway now where everyone uses Vipps (which is so much better), and PayPal is not a thing at all.
sigmoid10 21 hours ago [-]
Do you never order stuff online from outside of scandinavia? I've used it extensively for over a decade with zero issues and still find it the best payment method for online shopping if you are a consumer. You only need an email to send money everywhere in the world and almost everyone supports it. No need to hand out your actual credit card or banking info to random websites with questionable security. And if you do get scammed, it's trivial to get your money back. So I totally understand some small merchants who don't want to receive from papal, but I don't understand why a consumer would not want it.
zorked 21 hours ago [-]
There are entire countries where it's not a thing to use PayPal. Way too many people were scammed out of their money by them. In general you don't give your credit card number to random sites - it mostly goes to Stripe and similar services.
sigmoid10 21 hours ago [-]
These days stripe is perhaps getting dominant, but there was an age before stripe and many small companies still have custom solutions. And how would Paypal scam you out of your money? I've only ever seen this happen to people who did illegal shit and even then you won't lose much unless you also use paypal to store money like a bank for some weird reason. But then you're definitely more of a merchant than a consumer, so it already sucks because of other reasons as mentioned above. If you use it only for sending payments, getting locked out is a non-issue, because there is no money stored there and I can always revoke their access to my bank account.
freehorse 21 hours ago [-]
Norway is not a Baltic country. And I rarely encounter PayPal as the only option when ordering from eu anymore in general.
sigmoid10 21 hours ago [-]
I meant scandinavia.
shevy-java 21 hours ago [-]
Well, baltics have access to the EU; Norway only in a limited manner. I noticed this when someone wanted to purchase magic cards and when I looked at the extra bureaucracy I decided to do something else with my time. (Note: this may not have been mega-fair to the customer in Norway, but at that time I did not yet know how insane the EU rules are, they are just a mega-hassle. Since then I simply give notice that I avoid shipping into Norway, Switzerland etc...; and the fault for this really lies in the EU, they make so many trivial things needlessly complicated.)
Other than that, often you will then rely on in-between traders.
freehorse 21 hours ago [-]
I choose to go through the hoops of doing a bank transfer than through PayPal, if these two are the only options. It’s practices over the years are just terrible.
acd 24 hours ago [-]
There is us fair competition law Sherman anti trust act laws. "is a United States antitrust law which prescribes the rule of free competition among those engaged in commerce and consequently prohibits unfair monopolies"
Such a shame they didn't do anything with Braintree years ago and just let it rot
herbst 21 hours ago [-]
I remember when it came out they promised crypto payments and what not and then it never actually delivered anything else than being another confusing option to use PayPal
LoganDark 22 hours ago [-]
Braintree has Discord as a customer, they don't need anyone else.
charcircuit 22 hours ago [-]
So what happens when Discord switches?
LoganDark 22 hours ago [-]
Dunno. Odds are Braintree will do anything they could need.
20 hours ago [-]
ramijames 12 hours ago [-]
I can't imagine how potentially bad the codebase for PayPal must be.
Thought this would happen and would work out. Must have been a disagreement on more than just the price.
Only Stripe knows.
reenorap 18 hours ago [-]
If this is true, the CEO needs to be fired immediately by the Board and negotiations need to be resumed. Paypal has no future, getting 60B would have been a gift to them.
diogenescynic 24 hours ago [-]
PayPal is dying and not that slowly. It's being replaced by Stripe, Adyen, Checkout.com, Apple Pay, Google Pay... etc. margins continue to decrease with no real moat to rising competition. Eventually it will just be Venmo and Braintree left and PayPal will be a company like Western Union that people used to need, but now is mostly used by scammers... They completely squandered their spin off from eBay and acquired terrible companies along the way that didn't pan out really even one time. I wouldn't pay $25B for them. You're buying a depreciating asset.
93po 24 hours ago [-]
Thank God because Paypal has routinely been one of the shittiest internet companies to ever exist
LoganDark 22 hours ago [-]
Venmo is owned by PayPal
Computer0 23 hours ago [-]
We need to figure out how to make using stablecoins viable. Crypto still sucks to use for online purchases.
exe34 23 hours ago [-]
"pursuit" reminds me of mortal engines. But then I think the book was a comment on capitalism strip mining the earth anyway.
LightBug1 18 hours ago [-]
How on earth is a dogshit company like Paypal worth $50bn?
Particularly to such a vastly more sophisticated company like Stripe?
shevy-java 21 hours ago [-]
I wonder if this year we see more acquisitions,
by volume in money, than in prior years.
I never got into PayPal and these days I shy away
from any Trump-tainted US companies - which basically
means I don't want my money to go into US companies.
Canada showed the way here.
funlang 24 hours ago [-]
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andrewmcwatters 1 days ago [-]
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sathana 22 hours ago [-]
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sathana 22 hours ago [-]
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allears 1 days ago [-]
Stripe is tiny compared to Paypal, and the dodgy Stripe CEO was trying to do some wildly creative financing and work the social media memes in an effort to pull this transaction off. Wall St. basically thought it was stupid and wouldn't support it. Glad he finally gave up -- he certainly got his money's worth of free publicity out of it.
jey 1 days ago [-]
None of this makes sense or is supported by the facts. Stripe is reportedly valued at $159B, PayPal's market cap is currently $52.59B, and your claims about memes and Wall St are asserted without any citations or facts.
jmtulloss 1 days ago [-]
[disclaimer: I used to work at stripe]
I agree with you in principle but I don't think that market cap is the right metric. Market cap captures a lot of assumptions around product mix and growth rates that have been in Stripe's favor for a long time.
The most apples-to-apples comparison is just looking at payments volume and ignoring all their other products. In that case, Stripe just recently overtook PayPal! PayPal is enormous! But Stripe has that compounding growth on its side and GP's argument has become outdated in a short amount of time.
This is ignoring the bit about pc which I just disagree with.
KaiserPro 22 hours ago [-]
> Stripe is reportedly valued at $159B
But that value is not tested or backed by the wider market.
Market cap of paypal is.
Also having just spaffed "$8bn" on openrouter, I would be surprised that they have enough resources to get the ~$50bn to buy paypal. Much less the work it would take to integrate a much larger company in to the "stripe" way
Synthetic7346 14 hours ago [-]
They also bought bridge last year, and Clerky just now
helsinkiandrew 1 days ago [-]
Have you conflated the Ryan Coen/GameStop bid for EBay with the Stripe/payPal one? Your points match that perfectly
Outside the US many banks offer simple QR payment options, the direct transfer difficulties US citizens encounter that make services like PayPal and Zelle necessary are entirely self imposed.
Paypal has actively lobbied for legislation(or lack of) in ways that has hurt American consumers.
In Germany, cash is strongly preferred or was the last time I was there a few years ago.
In Norway, cash is nigh nonexistent.
Don’t mistake Germany as representative of the median European country when it comes to card transactions.
In 2026 I pay contractors working on my US house by logging into my bank and instructing it to mail a paper check.
The only exception is Venmo which everyone expects will be enshittified.
Next year we'll get this in the physical stores...
Wero is a great start but I suspect that PayPal will stay around for many more years.
Sure there are some that are against digital payments and they won’t accept Wero neither, but I would argue the number is very small. And sure in bars/clubs/nightlife it’s cash only but that also won’t change - it’s for tax reasons.
People don’t like PayPal and only use it for the lack of a better alternative. EC is widely used and I bet that Wero will be as well.
Source: lived last 15 years in Berlin
When I was young, cash was beloved by some as a matter of principle because of the fact you didn't need any authority's permission to accept it; coupled with its anonymity.
If you were running the city's only LGBT bookshop, you didn't want your till full of signed, dated checks - and card processors wouldn't do business with you even if you wanted to accept cards.
I used to go to a bar in Copenhagen with that principle.
The bar with the privacy principle didn't accept cards, and had a sign to that effect on the bar.
So to be clear: no issues with understanding or reading... I simply don't respect you as a person based on what you wrote.
Stalkers.
Abusive ex’s.
And if you think it’s assholes targeted this way, look at all the women being stalked via flock by cops.
And if you think finances aren’t abused the same way, why do you think the Germans are so worked up about this? The fucking stasi.
A certain type of person will use literally anything they can find against you, including to harass you if they literally can’t find anything you did wrong.
And what better for them than a nice list of all the places and people you have some kind of important vendor or business relationship with - which is why there is money changing hands.
Grocery stores. Gas stations/subway fees, rental payments or mortgage payments. restaurants, gifts or family transfers, work, you name it.
Also, ask an older German if you think I’m kidding.
The European Central Bank is working on regulation regarding the "Digital Euro" which is a bit in a marketing hype loop using block chain and other terms as a hype, while fundamentally trying to come up with a Euro-Zone-Wide approach to create a mostly anonymous digital currency, with some offline capability. If they come up with a final working concept paper, this would become legally mandated with low charges.
Wero is a product by banks, trying to be faster. Trying to have an established platform under their control, which is well established before ECB is ready with D€.
- Bizum for national transfers, you just need someone's number (which you usually have through WhatsApp) representing 90% of instant payments
- SEPA payments also make bank transfers free and trivial for your European friends
> Wero is a product of EPI Company SE > Available in Belgium, France and Germany.
Greetings from the rest of Europe.
But I think their time has passed.
What's the problem with sharing your bank details? I don't consider those a secret at all. And if they were, chances are they've been compromised somewhere anyway.
Or even backward-compatible changes like requiring banks to give customers virtual account numbers that they can give to different merchants/people and turn on and off.
The abstraction of the middleman makes sense to me for some types of payments, I find bank accounts a bit too low level sometimes.
Well and commit actual fraud/identity they by forging my signature maybe... But we don't see that happen on a large scale because it just isn't feasible/worth it. We would see it otherwise as I'm sure there are plenty of datasets with those pieces of info to be bought..
I am always surprised that people use PayPal for privacy reasons. The company shares a lot more of your information with third parties than a SEPA transfer or card payment would.
/s
Meanwhile in china you just scan a qr code.
In europe you just send money to their IBAN or they send you a link
Instant payments, no commission...
I think I have the choice to pay a monthly fee, nominate it as my official account for receiving my salary, or pay for the transactions.
I choose the last option as it's a backup account, and I make perhaps 1 transaction per year.
IIRC, real-time transfers commonly used to cost 50 cents (flat).
* Technically, they aren't allowed to cost more than regular transfers which cost 0 in ~all retail accounts
You can, but at least in Germany people are reluctant to give their IBAN to others and prefer one degree of separation, so PayPal is still very common for transfers between friends.
Are they worried people might send them money without their permission?
Unless you don't care what transfers happen, that's pretty much always enough time
I didn't know what it was so I clicked a few buttons in the app and the money was back instantly.
That was on Commerzbank. Dunno if others are the same!
So they send a polite email informing you of it and you pay it a few days late?
No reasonable entity would charge late fees as that's a great way to anger otherwise perfect customers?
For me to personally end up in this situation the bank would need to somehow SEPA out like 2 years worth of mortgages at once in a short timeframe, which is not a realistic scenario.
But yeah, it's a very high-trust society. Of course any charge can be reverted via your bank app in seconds. But it's still a nuisance to have to check, so people are wary of giving it away.
How does that even work?
Perhaps other banks don't do this and that is the problem.
Basically you do this with your bank and not the other way around with the merchant.
Is it common to check all your banking stuff every month to make sure there is nothing fraudulent? I don't see how this is practical
So basically people outside can lock your online account.
I am shocked by how F** dumb this was ever designed.
The money you get that way isn't guaranteed, the account owner could do a charge back. And if that happens you have to show the signed authorisation from the account owner. If you don't have it, expect your bank to terminate the direct debit ability.
Paying with CC: typing the 16 digits of the CC, expiration date, 'CVC', and then having your phone nearby for confirmation. Happens on a myriad of forms from various providers that may or may not save or log the CC number. Many times the text message doesn't arrive on time on your phone, which makes the transaction fail. Or you have reached your credit card 'limit' and the transaction also fails (without you knowing why).
Paying with Paypal: username and password (or password only if the username is saved), done. Happens only on the Paypal website. Funds are withdrawn immediately from your bank account if you want. Never fails.
This might work for you, but it's not a solution for less tech savvy/elderly people. These services are the easiest to scam people out of money on.
Those few buys per week I can enter CC numbers directly, I don't mind since its my money being spent. Don't need some questionable middle man if I can avoid that.
Worse I had stripe trip on me the other day which resulted in a "card declined" message but when I logged into the bank to authorize there was nothing there. Because apparently stripe decided not to even notify the bank of the suspected fraud. Thus there was seemingly no way for me to correct the error.
I can't even use tap to pay without either a physical chip from the bank or proprietary software. We've had ssh keys and oauth since ~forever there's no excuse for any of this.
Also Austria, perhaps Italy, but I have less direct experience there.
In other countries Revolut is popular for the friends and family bill splitting, in places like Sweden they have a PayPal-like solution offered by local banks. There’s an upcoming initiative by Brussels to bring all these national initiatives under one umbrella, which would definitely hurt PayPal’s German revenue in future.
I have, but never use, a 'credit card'. The thing I use every day is a 'debit card', where the money comes straight from my account. But it still has 16 digits and Visa written on the front.
Since then MasterCard has tried to force banks into dropping GiroCard, by refusing to work with smaller banks that still support GiroCard, and by offering better conditions to larger banks that drop GiroCard.
This has increased the number of Germans with Visa/MasterCard, but it's still below 50%.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switch_(debit_card)
If the supplier goes out of business / fails to deliver, the bank/credit card company is equally liable. A Section 75 claim is allowed for purchases between £100 and £30,000.
https://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumers/complaints-...
All the traditional large ones seem to have AFAIK.
Off topic but I really hate N26 and its ilk. They don't really follow the German laws that say that German residents can have bank accounts, so they refuse people that are still on work visas, which is a pain in the fucking ass when you have a startup and the young employees are telling the immigrants "get N26" or something else, but the immigrants can't have it and only learn after submitting lots of docs to N26.
They check during the KYC process via mobile phone camera, and will reject people without a residence permit (Aufenthaltserlaubnis, Blue Card, etc), and they claim several things, from "we don't accept work visas" to "I never saw this document in my life".
Legally, a work visa is an Aufenthaltserlaubnis according to § 4 AufenthG, so N26 is classifying it wrongly here.
But it gets worse because they're breaking § 31 ZKG, which says they're obligated to provide an account for everyone here legally. We have formally complained to BAFIN about it.
Just copied the above law paragraphs from an HR discussion, btw, this is a recurring issue...
And I know this from helping several others, since I'm the startup ecosystem. I'm European, but not German.
My Girocard has Maestro integration, so I can use it overseas, but no number. Apparently this is gonna go away.
The Girocard naturally has ApplePay, which is what I use daily.
People used to use Paypal because they have only debit cards. But with better card security and alternatives like SEPA and Wero there is way less need.
Many Germans don't have credit cards (I don't), so PayPal is pretty convenient as it can withdraw directly from a SEPA account and enables online shopping.
Google Pay cannot do SEPA, but allows adding PayPal as a payment method, so PayPal also gets you into the Google purchase ecosystem.
Revolut with its virtual CCs has been making some inroads lately, though.
I don't use mobile wallets. I've had a PP account since the time it was required to buy anything on Ebay.
The best feature it has is being able to cancel newspaper subscriptions without the hassle of calling and talking to a retention agent.
To answer the original question, because Zelle is ran by a consortium of banks, they all trust each other enough to release funds immediately and settle up overnight if need be.
I mistakenly opened a Bank of America account last year, but they had so many fraud protections on Zelle it was nearly impossible to use without constantly getting transfers held up for days and having to make phone calls to banking support to approve transactions and verify my identity, and it was such an absolute nightmare I will never ever bank with them again or recommend them to anybody. The worst part was absolutely the phone calls, I could never dismiss or approve anything online I always had to make a phone call during business hours.
Then I moved to US Bank and they support instant Zelle transfers, recurring Zelle transfers (which both my credit union and Capital One didn't support!), approving fraud alerts online and more, the only way I could be happier with them is if they had less security theater (like Mercury) but I'll be moving to Mercury anyway once they support Zelle.
I would call that outrageous. It is my money. I earned it. I paid taxes on it. Let me fucking use it.
That is what I like about crypto. What I have is actually mine. I can send it to whomever I want at any time.
I've even had people refuse cash because they want me to "venmo" them or whatever stupid app they prefer.
Americans are super weird about dining procedures and expectations. Remember, we tip here. It's weird.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tipping_customs_by_cou...
WTF, I want my payments to work, no “innovation” necessary.
The only thing easier than paying with a fingerprint is not paying at all. So their lifeline could be agentic shopping where you don't even shop anymore if this can ever become a thing.
It is 2026, in USA people are not having access to IBAN in their bank accounts, usually they have to be personally present for international transfers out of their accounts and everyone have a checkbook.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Bank_Account_Num...
It's still the only consistently supported thing I encounter online.
I'm aware things like Wero are poised to shake things up, but still have no real idea about timeline and impact.
Since then Apple Pay/Google pay/browser wallets have taken a big chunk of its fast checkout advantage
And mobile banking apps/instant transfer have taken out chunks of the private transactions, and more so as consumer to consumer transactions often had the parties using PayPal gift mode to avoid fees but that then had zero protection.
The 2020’s is much more crowded than 1990’s and 2020’s decades
Also it was its partnership with eBay that made it dominant and eBay no longer promote PayPal as preferred payment method.
That estimates PayPal still has 40%+ online payment market share.
I'm assuming a lot of that is long-tail 'I put a PayPal link on my store in 2005' stuff, but I imagine those add up.
And they're also probably a sticky customer base, in the sense that anyone still using PayPal as primary today doesn't like changing things, which makes acquiring those customers worth it.
Moving to Germany from the US was like entering a timewarp. PayPal is still real??? People use it??
I get it now but it's a pretty big miss that GiroCard couldn't figure out how to displace them after all this time.
Not having a lot of credit cards and the associated rewards is actually healthy. Research has shown lower social classes "pay" for the rewards due to paying the higher transaction fees. There was actually a relevant thread here a few days ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49432201 (How credit card rewards became a $9.2B wealth transfer)
Well, I used to live and work in South Korea for many years, so both DE and the US are about equally oldschool in my book :)
Also, it's often the way people transfer money between each other.
Card number is standard, with an increasing amount of places supporting Apple Pay (thankfully)
online is dead too, no app uses paypal, and plenty of online merchants take credit cards more than paypal; they even offer their own credit cards.
paypal hasn't innovated at all in over a decade, and people are scared of the way it will hang on to your money with little recourse.
You have already lost your plot with that claim. Just because you don't use it doesn't mean it is not widespread.
PayPal is the payment method I use for Google Pay, so pretty much everything goes through it.
(I don't have a credit card, which is common where I live.)
Generally I would use it on smaller / unfamiliar websites; I may be more hesitant about entering my credit card numbers but also it's quicker and easier as I can do it without getting my card out of my bag.
I also use it exclusively for eBay purchases.
It accounts for about 20% of my sales. I was about to write 'overwhelmingly Europeans' and I thought I better check. Nope.
Within Switzerland there is zero need for PayPal do you don't see it as much, but if you ship to Germany or Italy things start to get more complicated.
I am guessing the millions of people they have on-boarded in the last decades are what makes the business worth something.
It was bonkers.
[1]: Seriously though, I can’t find good data I trust on this so correct me if you’ve got a good source saying otherwise, or even if someone has something substantiating this better I would take that too.
> The takeover interest has helped it recover, with PayPal shares jumping more than 40% this quarter to give the company a market value of about $52.6 billion.
Seems like they tried to buy a struggling company and leaks of the talks made it too expensive.
If there weren't so many people hating PayPal, I'd expect a straight Stripe/Paypal choice to lean much more towards paypal, not a 50-50 split
Confirmation bias.
I have a side business that makes a gadget, akin to a guitar pedal. It has worked flawlessly for me, for well over a decade. Occasionally I casually search for an alternative (to have a backup) but have never found one.
PP lets me accept payments from a completely passive website. No code! While I love coding, maintaining an active web page is a cost. My IT costs are zero.
I think PP's buyer protections help my business too, by letting people feel confident that they can cancel a deal, and that I don't get any of their personal information except their shipping address. I don't want that information, and I don't want to be responsible for keeping it secure.
The Stripe interface with Link and whatnot is slick but it feels like I'm giving my credit card over to the merchant even though I know I'm not.
Is that a good thing, or is it crazy that such a simple concept (if consumer claims they don't get a product, you provide proof of delivery or we take the money back) has been almost unique to PP for so long?
In Canada, we use Interac for more ordinary payments between ourselves, and the usual credit cards through card processors like Moneris or bank provided services in physical stores. I can imagine fewer uses for PayPal as time goes on, especially with the accelerated change driven by geopolitics. Visa and Mastercard may be at risk internationally for other countries seeking to keep payment processing entirely in their own yard.
This matter in particular made me wonder how things will go for Stripe going forward with these policy changes that may impact credit cards.
I'd love to delete my PayPal account and never log in again, but the use case for me right now is mostly that companies (outside Canada, and outside NA in most cases) usually only accept payment with PayPal.
Other than that, often you will then rely on in-between traders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Antitrust_Act
1 month ago: Stripe and Advent have made a joint offer to acquire PayPal – sources https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48915953
Only Stripe knows.
Particularly to such a vastly more sophisticated company like Stripe?
I never got into PayPal and these days I shy away from any Trump-tainted US companies - which basically means I don't want my money to go into US companies. Canada showed the way here.
I agree with you in principle but I don't think that market cap is the right metric. Market cap captures a lot of assumptions around product mix and growth rates that have been in Stripe's favor for a long time.
The most apples-to-apples comparison is just looking at payments volume and ignoring all their other products. In that case, Stripe just recently overtook PayPal! PayPal is enormous! But Stripe has that compounding growth on its side and GP's argument has become outdated in a short amount of time.
This is ignoring the bit about pc which I just disagree with.
But that value is not tested or backed by the wider market.
Market cap of paypal is.
Also having just spaffed "$8bn" on openrouter, I would be surprised that they have enough resources to get the ~$50bn to buy paypal. Much less the work it would take to integrate a much larger company in to the "stripe" way
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgp5ll3jd4o?app-referre...