[waffle_ss]

Is Stripe Treasury still beholden to Stripe's list of restricted businesses?[1]

A few years ago I started a company with some partners and we signed up with Stripe Atlas. At the end of the lengthy application we got rejected by Stripe because our business falls under the "regulated" category. Even though we didn't need credit card processing, just ACH, and the former is seemingly where these list of prohibited businesses come from.

We ended up going full steam ahead with Dwolla instead. Although the developer experience is not as polished as Stripe, they don't discriminate against fully legal businesses that should be allowed to bank and transact like any other.

[1]: https://stripe.com/restricted-businesses

[edwinwee]

It is—the businesses we’re not able to work with are mostly restricted by the financial partners and banks that Stripe works with. But we do want to support as many business types as possible—and for Atlas in particular, we’ve recently been able to support many more. (For example, we fully support telemedicine companies now.) Would you be able to email me at [e-mail]? I’d like to take a second look at that rejection.

[digitaldarwin]

I had the same issue with my startup a few years back that was classified as transacting via rebates. Because the payment method was a rebate against a purchase Stripe dismissed us. And, like Waffle_es, that's when I discovered Dwolla. Nothing against Stripe, every business can choose who they want to serve.

[senoroink]

What was the business? Stripe's not really making the rules here, it's the financial partners backing them. Just because something is "legal" doesn't mean it's not risky. As an easy example, from the page you linked, "psychic services" are banned.

[waffle_ss]

Pharmacies exchanging prescription drugs. Regulated, not risky - don't confound the two.

And there are no "rules" restricting these transactions over the ACH network, Stripe is applying the widest scope of restrictions gathered from across of its partners, which include the credit card processors.

And I was asking this question to the Stripe PM, not some uninformed white knight.

[tener]

Things which aren't risky on some level just don't get regulated. There is a ton of risk involved in pharmacies.