[patio11]

Suppose a driver for a rideshare app wants to pay their car payment.

Stripe Connect can't be used to hold funds from many rides for a month; they have to pay it out to a bank account (which they might not have) or to a disbursement card, which (because loan repayments are generally not paid on a card in the U.S.) likely doesn't solve their problem without withdrawing cash and buying a money order. That is extra effort and cost for the driver.

Stripe Treasury would let the rideshare platform give their drivers an embedded money management account. That would allow indefinitely holding money, and would allow them to use e.g. bill pay for car payments, similar to the way that many HNers probably pay their own car payments today.

This is good for the platform (solves a pain point for many drivers) and good for the drivers (they get faster access to their funds, decreasing the likelihood they'll get dinged for a late repayment, and can spend less of their time managing low-value-added money movement when they could instead be driving).

[an_opabinia]

If my rideshare platform also lends or leases vehicles to its drivers, would Stripe Treasury permit the drivers to repay the loan or lease via the driver's treasury account where they get paid? Does regular Stripe support paying back loans or leases?

When I say permit, I mean from an acceptable use point of view, not an engineering point of view.

[patio11]

I know of no reason we'd not support the first, though feel free to run that by us formally if you want explicit permission in writing (which presumably a rideshare platform large enough to have a leasing operation would).

We don't support using Payments to collect loan repayments in most cases.

[jermaustin1]

> in most cases.

Are their cases where you do support using Payments for loan repayment?

I've had an idea for an "informal loan" platform that facilitates loans between friends, but paid back automatically, but I haven't ever acted on it because of the ban on using Stripe for loan repayments.

Synapse offers something like this, but is geared more toward loan origination than to strictly facilitation.

[bavell]

Wouldn't it be way easier and better for the driver to just open a bank account? Why would they want to tie something as important as making car payments to their ephemeral gig work?

[closeparen]

Many people don’t want or cannot get real bank accounts, e.g. because they can’t sustain the minimum balance, have been blacklisted for bouncing checks, or it just isn’t the norm in their community.

[lambda_obrien]

It's kind of a slippery slope to start letting employers hold pay in an account they control... reminds me of the union busting articles on the top right now, with Facebook building employee housing now, the idea you brought up is the next step towards the "Facebook Store" and scrips.

I understand some people have trouble banking, but the answer should then be for us to ensure they can have equal access to banking, no matter what.

[closeparen]

Agreed. But this is not some gig economy thing... when an institution needs to pay you and you don't have direct deposit, often they will send you a prepaid debit card instead of a check. Even the federal government does this [0]. These cards tend to have predatory fees.

[0] https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/economic-impact-payments-being-...

[lambda_obrien]

I'm aware of that practice, and that's why I would hope that we could build something like the often talked about USPS bank, or whatever, so everyone can have equal access to real banking with no predatory practices.

Not that any gig companies are doing this yet, or even thought to do it, but I just don't like the idea of this being done in a "company scrips"-like fashion, there are some things that should be totally nuclear to the touch, and tying even more of your life to your company (in the USA you have medical, housing, food, etc. tied to your work) should be nuclear.

[toomuchtodo]

> and that's why I would hope that we could build something like the often talked about USPS bank, or whatever, so everyone can have equal access to real banking with no predatory practices.

I signed up on the wait list and emailed patio11 specifically to build such a product. Regarding your point about company scrip, I think prevention against that is best served by reaching out to your Congressional representatives, as well as members of the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services, to legislate safeguards. Without the force of law, protections are only polite suggestions.

[trhway]

bank may not open an account for the driver, and why push the drivers to the bank if you can provide kind of substitute of those services thus expanding your business in such a great way.

>Stripe Treasury would let the rideshare platform give their drivers an embedded money management account. That would allow indefinitely holding money, and would allow them to use e.g. bill pay for car payments, similar to the way that many HNers probably pay their own car payments today.

It sounds like what Stripe is doing is providing a quasi-bank account, kind of retail frontend emulating limited banking services and backend-ed by GS and the likes as Stripe doesn't seems to have a license themselves ("commoditize your complement" comes to mind). Though it doesn't sound like a service for the driver, it only looks like it. It is the service for the platform. Interesting who really owns the "embedded" account/money - platform or the driver. If the driver then it looks more like bank, if the platform - interesting can of worms, like you employer providing an imitation of a real account for you and holding money in your name. I.e. it seems that the point here is to find a way to keep money in the system (the platform keeping drivers' money in Stripe - i.e. "That would allow indefinitely holding money" seems to be the key here) instead of just merely piping the money.

[senko]

Thanks! This makes sense, we could've definitely used it on a project a while ago (ended up using Connect but had to modify the product to accommodate).

[vincentmarle]

> This is good for the platform

Just curious, who gets paid the interest on these accounts?

[withinboredom]

If you find a run-of-the-mill business account that pays interest, please share.