In Aug 2013, I picked up on Stripe, and was impressed by their ‘start up’ approach to a space banks should have owned, but failed since day 1.
Stripe – simple online payments …
Today this piece at Bloomberg surprises with the extent that Stripe have become engaged in the payments eco-system that matters. This piece is worth the read just to see the big name players Stripe have engaged.
Stripe Lands Apple in Quest for $720 Billion in Payments
They are integrated with Apply Pay, Alibaba and have these backers:
Stripe has the backing of investors including Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz, as well as PayPal co-founders Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and Max Levchin. It has raised about $140 million in funding, with its $1.75 billion valuation pegged to a financing in January.
Bankwatch 
Interesting. Strip’s weakness is that it is a virtually unknown brand among consumers, which may lead to fewer sales at the point of sale. Apple, of course, is a very well known and trusted brand. It will be interesting to see how that brand stands up in the murkey world of banking and payments!