Payments Startup Stripe Expands to Canada in Challenge to PayPal

Online payments startup Stripe is now available in Canada.

Stripe’s Sheena Pakanati announced their Canadian plans on Stripe’s blog today.

According to their site Strip is publicly available for use by any individual or business based in Canada and it’s the exact same Stripe that is available in the US: instant approval, all major card types accepted, the ability to accept payments from anyone in any country, and simple, flat pricing, without monthly fees.

Stripe tested the service in Canada over the summer and got extensive feedback from beta user companies including Victoria’s MetaLab and Ottawa’s Shopify.

In many ways, launching in Canada is a big step for us—going from 1 to 2 is often harder than going from 2 to n—but it’s only a small piece of what we have in mind. We grew up in countries from Honduras to Kenya, and a large part of why we’re so eager to build Stripe is to help those outside the US to participate as first-class citizens in the internet economy.

Bloomberg’s Danielle Kucera interviewed Shopify’s Tobi Lutke to get an insider’s view of the news and he had this to say: “The credit card gateways in Canada are much more tied to the banking system. It takes literally months to get a payment gateway set up. With Stripe, it takes minutes. It’s a game changer in Canada.”