melnichevv

[late cargo]

Hey there

Reading

[polar turret]

Hey. Thank you (:

[late cargo]

Okay so "1). Is there a way we can transfer money between linked banks via Stripe? If so - which Stripe service can we use (Stripe Connect etc.)?" -- here you are asking if it is possible to have money flow directly between two external bank accounts?

[polar turret]

correct

[late cargo]

Got it. In that case no, you would accept a payment from one and then payout to another. But you can't indicate for them to transfer directly to each other.

For 2). I've noticed that connected bank account has payment method "us_bank_account". What this mean and can we use it for transfers?
This means that you can charge ACH Debit for that PaymentMethod

So you could do a pull-based debit to charge the account and pull funds into your Stripe Account

[polar turret]

Got it. In that case no, you would accept a payment from one and then payout to another. But you can't indicate for them to transfer directly to each other.
In this case our Stripe account will kinda be in between of those two bank accounts, right?
and fee will probably be applied two times here, right?

Regarding the ACH Debits - this kind of operation/transfer is not instant and will require some time for fund to appear on the destination account, did I get it correctly?

[late cargo]

There is a fee to take a payment, but no fee for a payout here (what would be considered an OutBoundPayment) (see: https://stripe.com/docs/treasury/moving-money/moving-money-out-of-financial-accounts) I believe. That said, I'm not super familiar with the fee structure here as I just focus on the API so you may want to verify fee info with our Support team (https://support.stripe.com/contact/login).

That is correct that ACH Debit is not instant.

It usually takes 3-5 business days for payment to land

[polar turret]

gotcha. thanks

so regarding the transfers - accepting payment and paying out - this is the only option, correct?

and it really doesn't matter whether we ask user to link either bank account or card - this will work the same for both types, correct?

[late cargo]

Can you clarify there? What do you mean exactly by link by bank account or card? When you create a financial account you are linking a bank account. Are you referring to using Stripe Issuing for providing a card to your users? Or something else?

[polar turret]

I'm talking about something like this https://stripe.com/docs/payments/save-and-reuse

[late cargo]

Ah okay you are talking about just taking payments here

So yeah you can always just accept payments in whatever form you want.

Then if you were going to payout to your users you would send funds to the Financial Account

The other option is to use Connect

And create Connected Accounts for your users

[polar turret]

which benefits we may get from using Connect in this case?

and how can we use it to achieve our needs?

[late cargo]

Let's back up a sec here

You said We are building a platform, which should allow users to connect their cards to our platform, so later we can check their balances and make transfers between those cards (within user's account). Like user wants to make a purchase equal $1500, so we need to transfer $1000 and $500 from two other card to the "main" one. Ideally we would like to do that without any input/confirmation from user.

Let's break down each step

You want to first be able to accept payments from customers, right? That's what you mean by "which should allow users to connect their cards to our platform", yes?

[polar turret]

we just need to transfer funds between customer's cards/bank accounts. As far as I understand that can be done by accepting payment and then doing a pay out.
If that the only option to transfer funds - than my answer to your question is "yes"

[late cargo]

Ah okay so you want to take a payment on one card from the customer to then be able to move those same funds out to their bank account?

[polar turret]

something like that. It can be done either via card<->card or via card<->bank_account

[late cargo]

Hmm okay and are you providing the card/bank account here at all to your users? Or this is their own cards/bank accounts that they already have?

And are these businesses or individual customers/users?

Sorry, I know this is a lot of questions but there are a variety of flows here and certain flows have certain limitations.

[polar turret]

those are individuals and all the transfers should be done within their own cards/bank accounts

[polar turret]

that's fine. Thank you for your patience and all the help (:

[plucky tide]

Typically this would be modelled depending on that large purchase you're facilitating, and pulling funds from separate payment sources. It shouldn't be necessary to "transfer" between accounts/cards in that case.

You would need to manage your logistics and payment flow carefully to ensure all partial payments were fully collected prior to fulfillment, but it's doable.

[polar turret]

yeah, sure. We are aware of this.
For now it's not fully clear to me how we can transfer funds and this is the biggest bottleneck for us

[plucky tide]

It depends what you mean by transfer. Typically transfers are something you do from your platform to a connected stripe account to pay for services/goods they provide that you facilitate. THere's a sale at some point.

[polar turret]

yeah, in our case there wouldn't be any sale. Those are just transfers, like I can do them on my external bank account website/app: transfer funds from my card_1 to my card_2, but this should work for cards from different banks and outside of bank website/app

[plucky tide]

I see -- in this case I'd recommend reaching out to our support team with a detailed description of the business and the way you plan to move funds, so that they can advise about whether this can be supported: https://support.stripe.com/contact

[prisma tartan]

As a fellow user: Stripe is, in general, a ONE-WAY payment processor - FROM "Customers who make payments via various methods" TO "Business Accounts that take payments" - either the Platform, or connected Accounts.  Stripe generally does NOT make payments or transfers to "Customers", and generally does NOT transfer funds between Connected Accounts.  It does not behave like a "banking system". Hence the referral to support for any alternative approaches. (I don't work for Stripe)

[polar turret]

got it. Thank you very much for all the help! Appreciate that! Will reach Stripe support then

[polar turret]

Hey. Thanks for the explanation. Looks pretty clear to me!

@late cargo thank you for the help too!