Stripe to launch new bank transfer proposition in UK to take away "operational pain"

Payments giant Stripe is launching a new bank transfer proposition in the UK and other markets, which it says will erase  “the operational pain of receiving and manually reconciling transfers” for businesses.

Bank transfers, which have been in existence since 1871 when Western Union added money transfers to its telegram service, are still one of the most common ways to send money today.

According to Stripe, in Europe more than $4trillion in bank transfers is processed each year.

But the current process, says Stripe, is filled with “friction”- pointing to businesses losing hundreds of hours on confirming transfers, reconciliation and accounting, and refunds. 

StrIpe’s new offering, already launched in Japan, is now being rolled out in the  UK, EU and Mexico.

Fundamentally, it automates all reconciliation and says it creates a simplified refund process.

In a blog post, Stripe said: "We provide a virtual bank account number (VBAN) for each customer, so that incoming transfers automatically map to the correct customer. VBANs are localised and regionally recognisable. 

“A reconciliation layer allows businesses to immediately see if a customer has paid too much or too little—and can resolve overpayments through the dashboard and API.”

On its new refund process, Stripe said: “Stripe users can return a payment to a customer without initiating a new bank transfer from their account.

“With one simple API call or a dashboard click, users can refund a customer—no need to set them up as a payee.”