#1536 - Payment gateway: Stripe

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May implement local payment support via OmniPay library (http://omnipay.thephpleague.com/gateways/official/). If we do that put a note in other payment gateway issues that OmniPay supports as now supporting local payments (but payment button work may still be desired), and document.
Link in initial comment is now a 404, here is the Github repo @ https://github.com/thephpleague/omnipay-stripe

Stripe:
No application needed: No (https://support.stripe.com/questions/business-information-requirements-to-use-stripe)
Transparent pricing: Yes
No monthly fee: Yes
Reasonable per-transaction percentages: Yes (2.9%)
No bad reputation: Yes
Targets micro businesses: Yes
Payment button+IPN API: Yes (https://stripe.com/payments/checkout or https://stripe.com/payments/elements, https://stripe.com/docs/webhooks)
Local payments API: No
Reasonably modern website: Yes
Reasonably stable business: Yes
International: Yes
No bank merchant account needed: Yes
Supports subscriptions: Yes
Supported by PHP Omnipay library: Yes
PayPal has jumped the shark in terms of reputation, after their terms now saying they will take $2500 out of people's accounts if they deem them violating their content policy.
We can no longer stomach having PayPal as our main supported gateway, so we needed to pick another one that would work well as a drop-in replacement.
After doing an extensive review it came down to 2checkout and stripe, and stripe won out. Stripe has a good reputation and is a very dominant player nowadays, second only to PayPal which has been around a very long time.
So the current intention is to implement this for v11.
I think that $2500 clause was always there in previous policies for various infringements, it's just the misinformation bit that was attempted that's new. I'm not deleting my account as I very much doubt that I'll be getting fined by Paypal. Have used 2checkout quite a few times for purchases online, never really noticed Stripe as an option to be honest. There is also Wise. Not sure if you've reviewed it and decided against it, for reasons, but it seems worthy of inclusion in the list of options from what I've read.

https://wise.com/
https://wise.com/gb/business/api

I've always been very uncomfortable with having PayPal as our primary supported payment gateway, as there are so many horror stories of people's accounts (=money) being frozen for no reason other than hearsay from a disgruntled customer.
Their website backend is also a mess of different website designs that have just been stuck together without much thought for user experience - they just come across as very dated with no willingness to move with the times with a real vision.
Regarding the 2500 specifically: PayPal's former president thinks it's a big issue: https://twitter.com/davidmarcus/status/1578795041719750663
While I'm not for misinformation, it really has such a potential for abuse. There have been a number of high profile incidents in recent years where things that were considered misinformation turned out to be true. But even if that weren't the case, having some capricious (and possibly largely unaccountable) policy enforcer at PayPal deciding what is and is not true and as a result what to do with your money, is just a terrible idea.

Anyways, adding Stripe support is long-overdue. While PayPal is not going to be our primary supported gateway, Patrick has been testing it a lot recently and even added new PDT support for it, so it'll be good for quite some time I would think. I'd be surprised if we let the PayPal support break any time soon.

Regarding Wise, it's interesting they are moving in the API direction. However: "We currently don’t offer the option to build Wise into your checkout flow as a payment option to receive money".
Further information: PayPal's wording for what is and isn't against acceptable use (and therefore may be subject to the $2500 fine) is vague / broad. As Chris mentioned, this enables a wide area of potential abuse by PayPal.

We also noticed a similar issue with Square's policies and therefore decided against adding support for it (for now). Stripe, on the other hand, has concise wording in their agreement which offers little room for them to abuse it. And that is a plus.
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