Payment Processor Deplatforming

Comments criticize the power of payment processors like Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and Stripe to refuse service to legal businesses, viewing it as financial censorship or deplatforming, and discuss alternatives like crypto, new processors, or regulation.

➡️ Stable 0.6x Finance & Crypto
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#1710
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Keywords

HS NFC US paralleleconomy.com OP OTOH www.ft HSBC PayPal VISA payment payment processors processors processor payments business mastercard visa mastercard paypal banks

Sample Comments

bluefirebrand Jul 28, 2025 View on HN

Maybe Payment Processors shouldn't be a nearly global duopoly then

jack_pp Sep 19, 2020 View on HN

Can they not force payment processors to stop doing business with them?

digital_voodoo Dec 9, 2024 View on HN

A customer shouldn't be the one going through such hops in order to "satisfy" a provider who can't bother to accept a widely used mean of payment

adriancr Aug 25, 2021 View on HN

They are probably looking for alternative payment methods. (coinbase payment processor and accept cryptocurrencies?)Or they got some guarantees from banks that they won't get banned.Their options are to die like tumbler or fight a bit. Moving away from traditional payment processors might cause problems for them as well.

mrguyorama Jun 20, 2023 View on HN

Arguably there's no reason this shouldn't be something managed by the payment processor instead of a supposed app store

throwawaysea Dec 10, 2020 View on HN

Neither Visa, nor MasterCard, nor PayPal, nor Stripe should have the power to pick whose payments get processed. I don't care that these are private organizations. Payment processing is a fundamental utility service for society today. The fact that we've outsourced it to oligopolies that enjoy the lack of real competition from network effects is an indication that these companies must be broken up or heavily regulated. Payment processors should not get to deny clients except where the

marcosdumay May 9, 2019 View on HN

If every payment processor worked like this, this story wouldn't be here.

alanh Sep 15, 2022 View on HN

This sounds more like incompetence than censorship at first glance, but FYI, there are alternatives with explicit ambitions of being more trustworthy partners in payment processing: https://www.paralleleconomy.com/

singular Apr 26, 2011 View on HN

This is vastly disturbing. Surely there is a gap in the market here for a payment processor that doesn't do shit like this? Are there any startups in this area?Or is this just an inevitable result of working with money (having to be very careful to avoid scammers/criminals)? I really can't believe that's the case though.As @dexen said, perhaps there should be some provisions put in place to disincentivise current processors at least.Perhaps bitcoin has a role to play to avoid suc

quantified Sep 17, 2022 View on HN

Payment processors already deplatform businesses they don't like.