HACKER Q&A
📣 mubarratc

Why doesn't Stripe use more than one acquiring processor?


If I understand Stripe payments correctly, all they are is an API that sit in-between merchants and Wells Fargo?

Lately, we've been having problems with a bunch of failed payments, most of which have random 'Do Not Honor' failure messages.

I wonder our payment failure rate would decrease if we used different payment facilitators, which begs the question, why don't companies like Stripe just use multiple acquiring banks like World Pay or First Data?

  👤 edwinwee Accepted Answer ✓
“Do not honor” is a decline from the customer’s card issuer — they might think something’s off with the payment or there’s something up with the customer’s account. If you haven’t talked with our support team yet to dig in, could you email me at edwin@stripe.com?

Stripe is a direct network platform, meaning, we work with Visa, Mastercard, etc. and the charges are run directly through the card networks, which negates the need for a middle acquiring layer.