[las_cases]

Is there any guide about what it takes for Stripe to launch in a country? From this article it seems that it was entirely Stripe's choice to launch in Japan (rising culture of startups apparently) so why not entering the Eastern Europe (Poland. Croatia, Romania etc) too?

Take Romania for example, we would love to have a decent alternative to PayPal, are there any legislation impediments that prevents Stripe from entering here? Also, what exactly are the costs for Stripe when launching in a new country?

[paulsutter]

Japan is the second largest and most homogenous consumer economy in the world, and everything works here (infrastructure, payments, etc).

That was the rationale that the cofounder of a different major Silicon Valley payments company told me when they chose Japan as the first country outside the US, and it seems like a credible rationale for Stripe to put Japan high on their list.

There's also a very low rate of fraud here in Japan, which should count for a lot.

[markvdb]

Have you tried using paymill? It's available in the entire EU...