I’ve been waiting for this for a long time.

Stripe is finally here in Malaysia and you can actually use it. No longer for beta testers or owners of a large e-commerce websites.

I wanted to use it because it allows me to create online training courses with a subscription or a payment plan. With Paypal I couldn’t do it unless I use more software.

All you need to do is to click “Activate Account” and answer a few simple questions.

As with any account the usual full name, address, NRIC, bank account, business name etc. is required.

Click submit and you are good to go.

Differences between Paypal and Stripe

With Stripe money goes into you local bank account after a few days or weeks. Not exactly immediately but within a few days.

Paypal though keeps your money until you withdraw it to your bank account in Malaysia.

You get to decide how often for Stripe to send money to your bank account. Whether daily, weekly, monthly or even ad hoc.

Useful in case you need to refund someone if you have money back guarantee of some sort.

Pros and cons?

With Paypal you have the option to leave your money in Paypal until the exchange rate is more favorable.

I also like to keep some money in Paypal for online purchases like web hosting etc. which is usually in US dollars to avoid double transaction and exchange fees twice from USD to MYR and back to USD.

So there are still some advantage to using Paypal.

That way I reduce transaction and exchange fees twice from USD to MYR and back to USD.

Yet that would also depend on the exchange rate and fees on Paypal vs Stripe. Paypal exchange rate to MYR is rather bad all this while..

By the way make sure you activate TFA, or two factor authentication when you sign up for an added layer of security.

Teething Problems?

I had some initial problems with Stripe since I used a platform that hooks up to Stripe to process the payment.

The problem was not related to Stripe but the platform I use to host my courses. Any way I sorted that out and here’s the first test payment.

Remember to test things out before you use it.

And here are some from customers.

Update

Here are my observations. after a few transactions. This is for people in MY with international transactions.

The Stripe fee is 3% + RM 1.00 flat rate and then 6% tax added to the fees. One thing though is Stripe converts whatever currency to MYR first, then applies the fees.

For Paypal the fee is 4.4%+ USD 0.30. However there is a currency conversion fee which is applied at the time of withdrawal. This fee is around 2.9% when compared to the market rate.

For local transaction the fee for Paypal is 3.9% + RM 2 and remains the same for Stripe at 3% + RM1. Not sure if there is any tax added via Paypal to this though.

Paypal charges RM 3 on top of the conversion fee if your withdrawal is less then RM 400.

Take note that Paypal has a fee schedule and as your monthly transactions increase, the fees decrease. So your actual fees could be lower.

The total fee for Stripe is much lower compared to Paypal when your volume of sales is less than RM 12,000 per month. At least for international transaction.