With API Update, Stripe Allows Developers to Build Digital Wallets
Payments processor Stripe released an update to its API that allows multiple cards to be attached to a single customer file.
Stripe provides payments services to technology developers, and this addition to its API appears to allow developers to build digital wallets.
Because Stripe is built for developers, the notification does not read like it was written by the marketing department:
NEW ENDPOINTS:
– POST /customers/customer_id/cards to create a new card for a customer. We now allow multiple cards to be attached to a customer. Note that we still support passing :card to the customer update endpoint, but doing so is equivalent to deleting the old default_card and creating a new card to be the default_card. If you want to add cards to the customer instead of replacing an existing card, use this new card endpoint instead of the customer endpoint.
And that’s just the summary. The actual language describing the API is here.
Stripe recently got a competitor of sorts in its space with MasterCard’s Simplify Commerce, and more generally, APIs are growing in importance for financial services. The startup Standard Treasury, for example, asserts that APIs can help bridge the gap between aging core systems and the digital services customers now expect.
Digital wallets, however, are finding a more varied reception. Isis, the digital wallet from a consortium of telcos, this week unveiled a $100 Amazon gift card to anyone who “enables an American Express or Chase credit card” in the Isis wallet. (We’re calling it the “Please, Please, Please Use Isis” offer.)
With some digital wallet services floundering, why should anyone expect that Stripe will find great demand for its multiple-card-per-customer API? The truth is, who knows how successful digital wallets will eventually be implemented. At least Stripe is making the possibility of digital wallets more widely available.
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