Ask HN: Does anyone want to take on the payment processing networks with me?
10 comments
Hey
I work in the payment processing industry as a software developer.
Your problem isn't tech, there is a huge regulatory and compliance hurdle. By the time you figure all that out and convince people to use your network, you will be charging the same fees
How would this be different than me getting a TransferWise account and getting access to global instant payment rails they plug into (UPI [India], Pix [Brazil], SEPA [Europe], etc)?
International instant payment network map: https://www.pymnts.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/PYMNTS-Rea...
Faster and safer instant euro payments become a reality - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45532280 - October 2025
[US] FedNow Is Live - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36801491 - July 2023
Venmo and Paypal users will also send money to each other now using an alias starting in November 2025.
Venmo and PayPal users will be able to send money to each other - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45427088 - September 2025
Maybe I'm missing the value prop?
International instant payment network map: https://www.pymnts.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/PYMNTS-Rea...
Faster and safer instant euro payments become a reality - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45532280 - October 2025
[US] FedNow Is Live - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36801491 - July 2023
Venmo and Paypal users will also send money to each other now using an alias starting in November 2025.
Venmo and PayPal users will be able to send money to each other - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45427088 - September 2025
Maybe I'm missing the value prop?
> International instant payment network map
that's an interesting map, thank you for sharing it, but oh my it'd be easier to read if they'd decided to use more colours beyond two slightly different shades of green to encode "has instant payments" and "does not have instant payments".
that's an interesting map, thank you for sharing it, but oh my it'd be easier to read if they'd decided to use more colours beyond two slightly different shades of green to encode "has instant payments" and "does not have instant payments".
[deleted]
FedNow is extremely exciting, as is the development of local instant payment networks and I’m hoping they can eclipse card networks soon. Development in the US hasn’t been as fast as in other emerging markets though wrt their own networks
As for Venmo/Paypal interoperability across other fintechs is something they’re not supporting at the moment for instance I can’t send money to my friend who uses CashApp and have to use Zelle (so ultimately Zelle/banks win). But that being said they do have a large user base between their two platforms.
Paylias is more closer to the links you shared around instant payment systems, than Wise. In an ideal world, Wise would integrate Paylias’s APIs and issue you an alias that you could use to send/receive/pay money to a friend that uses another wallet.
As for Venmo/Paypal interoperability across other fintechs is something they’re not supporting at the moment for instance I can’t send money to my friend who uses CashApp and have to use Zelle (so ultimately Zelle/banks win). But that being said they do have a large user base between their two platforms.
Paylias is more closer to the links you shared around instant payment systems, than Wise. In an ideal world, Wise would integrate Paylias’s APIs and issue you an alias that you could use to send/receive/pay money to a friend that uses another wallet.
Naive question, how do you incentivise customers to use it and grow adoption?
My hazy understanding of the traditional credit card network businesses [1] is that a credit card network partners with a retail bank to design a credit card product offering big incentives to customers (points etc) and then gouge the merchants to pay for those customer incentives and also to pay for the network's high fees. Merchants hate it but can't really do anything about it as if they don't offer credit card payment they miss out on a huge chunk of potential business. Customers love it due to the incentives. Every now and again a huge merchant tries to launch their own competing payment system that costs them less than credit cards and they struggle to gain adoption.
Another data point, over here in Australia, an industry group formed by our major banks rolled out the New Payments Platform, in response to a strategic review by our federal reserve bank. NPP supports instant payments for low value retail transactions. It took about 6 years from design to go live, and went live in 2018. It's settled through our federal reserve bank. Wholesale payment fees charged to the banks for these transactions are not disclosed, but apparently amount to a few cents per transaction. As of 2022, 4 years after the NPP's 2018 launch, 75% of transactions and 65% of transaction value was being processed by card networks (this has been growing as cash is used less and less) while the number of card protocol transactions was still around 5-6x the number of NPP transactions [2]. This rate of adoption of NPP is relatively high, probably influenced by Australia having a small number of major retail banks who were part of the industry group designing and rolling out NPP.
[1] e.g. https://joincolossus.com/episode/rampell-visa-the-original-p... [2] https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/annual-reports/psb/2023/...
My hazy understanding of the traditional credit card network businesses [1] is that a credit card network partners with a retail bank to design a credit card product offering big incentives to customers (points etc) and then gouge the merchants to pay for those customer incentives and also to pay for the network's high fees. Merchants hate it but can't really do anything about it as if they don't offer credit card payment they miss out on a huge chunk of potential business. Customers love it due to the incentives. Every now and again a huge merchant tries to launch their own competing payment system that costs them less than credit cards and they struggle to gain adoption.
Another data point, over here in Australia, an industry group formed by our major banks rolled out the New Payments Platform, in response to a strategic review by our federal reserve bank. NPP supports instant payments for low value retail transactions. It took about 6 years from design to go live, and went live in 2018. It's settled through our federal reserve bank. Wholesale payment fees charged to the banks for these transactions are not disclosed, but apparently amount to a few cents per transaction. As of 2022, 4 years after the NPP's 2018 launch, 75% of transactions and 65% of transaction value was being processed by card networks (this has been growing as cash is used less and less) while the number of card protocol transactions was still around 5-6x the number of NPP transactions [2]. This rate of adoption of NPP is relatively high, probably influenced by Australia having a small number of major retail banks who were part of the industry group designing and rolling out NPP.
[1] e.g. https://joincolossus.com/episode/rampell-visa-the-original-p... [2] https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/annual-reports/psb/2023/...
I think this is correct. And the poster equally identified this issue.
"Customers love it, merchants hate it".
But customers would drive adoption of any system, and why would they use this one?
Speaking as a merchant, I don't "hate" the fees. They're a cost of doing business (shrug). Like rent. It's just built into the price the customers pay.
And no, I'm not going to have things at multiple prices for different payment options. Life is too short for that kind of admin.
I think ultimately this is where all "payment disruption" falls over - they rely on customers changing, but customers are happy already...
"Customers love it, merchants hate it".
But customers would drive adoption of any system, and why would they use this one?
Speaking as a merchant, I don't "hate" the fees. They're a cost of doing business (shrug). Like rent. It's just built into the price the customers pay.
And no, I'm not going to have things at multiple prices for different payment options. Life is too short for that kind of admin.
I think ultimately this is where all "payment disruption" falls over - they rely on customers changing, but customers are happy already...
Website: https://paylias.xyz/
Docs: https://apidocs.paylias.xyz/overview/index
Demo video: https://youtu.be/sUiZuVT9yR4
Docs: https://apidocs.paylias.xyz/overview/index
Demo video: https://youtu.be/sUiZuVT9yR4
Coinflow does this already and Stripe is working on something similar.
[deleted]
I’ve been working on a prototype payment network that allows people to send and receive payments at a fraction of the cost to traditional rails.
I started working on this when building out the previous fintech I started, Safepay (YC S20) and realized how much value card networks extract from fintechs on both sides, and by extension the businesses that rely on them and thought that there has to be a better way.
I think I’ve found what this could be and the only thing holding me back is finding the right person to take this on with.
So what is it? (Links added below)
The idea is to allow people to make and receive payments through simple aliases. Send money from your Chime account to your friend on Coinbase or pay a merchant using Stripe with your Revolut account. Scan a QR code on a receipt with your banking app after dinner and settle the bill.
In the background we pass messages back and forth between different participants and process net, deferred settlements with stablecoins.
Are you interested?
If you think this could be something you see yourself working on, email me at [email protected]. You should be technically strong so we can distribute the workload between each other and humble enough to know that this will be a grind that may take a few years to play out. I’m sure there are others thinking or working on this so time is against us.
Thank you for reading and even if this isn’t relevant for you, you could help build a company just by upvoting this and bringing this in front of the right person