American payments start-up Stripe has officially launched in the UK and is now setting its sights on mainland Europe.
Stripe provides merchants with an API that they can embed into their Web sites to easily accept credit card payments. Users don't need merchant accounts and can set up their own payment forms without having to worry about PCI compliance requirements.
With around $40 million in funding in the bag, the start-up is already processing millions of dollars each day in North America for companies including Heroku, Foursquare, Evite, Grooveshark and Reddit.
Having opened a London office and signed up thousands of UK companies to a waiting list, Stripe got a closed beta underway in the spring, enabling GBP and USD payments through Visa and MasterCard cards.
Now, with a full launch, businesses can accept all major card types and, for the first time, Stripe is adding support for multiple currencies: UK users can charge in USD, GBP and EUR immediately.
Pricing in the UK starts at 2.4% plus 20 pence per transaction plus VAT, with volume discounts available.
Kieran O'Neill, founder of online personal shopping service Thread.com, says: "Having used and evaluated countless payment services over my last three businesses, Stripe is by far the easiest solution available. We were able to begin accepting live payments in a matter of minutes and the integration for Thread.com took a fraction of the time it's taken previously."
Meanwhile, Stripe says that it's now hiring as it bids to move into the rest of Europe and Australia.