Hi David, We do already accept donations directly to our bank accounts and this is also how most of the sponsors paid us. This is the best way for us financially as it costs us nothing. (bank transfer cost is usally paid by the sender and is lower for higher amounts as it's normally a flat fee) But for small transactions like the matching fund, where we typically receive 5-50USD/donation an assumed fixed cost of 5-10USD will result in transaction fees of 20-200% of the donation, which is why we need another way to accept those payments.
I looked at a few different payment provides a while ago and tried to figure out how much they charge: https://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/Talk:DebConf13/Teams/Finances >From that list, some were unusable from Switzerland, because they're US-only and some require monthly fees. At the end we were left with a small list of Paypal, Google Checkout and Click&Pledge via SPI. If you know another provider which doesn't require monthly fees, please tell me Google Checkout was ruled out as it seems to need a Google Account, whereas Paypal can be used without a paypal account and just requires a credit card. About the fees: Unfortunately all those payment methods either cost a percentage of the donated amount or are only usable within one country and/or need the donor to set up an account. As we want to make it as convenient as possible to donate money, we need to accept credit cards (which we do by using PayPal) IMO it's still better to pay some money to a payment provider instead of not receiving a donation at all, because the donor decides not to donate instead of using a more complicated method which is cheaper for us. There are other risks with PayPal, e.g. that they lock our account for some reasons. We mitigate this risk by transferring the money from the PayPal account to our bank account. So in case, this happens, we'd just replace the PayPal donate button on the website. SPI Click&Pledge vs Paypal: The main reason we use PayPal is to make make book-keeping easier, as we can export all the payments from PayPal and don't have to manually add up the amounts from emails... And another benefit is that it's cheaper. According to the SPI treasurer, Click&Pledge charges SPI 4% + USD 0.35. SPI will then charge an additional 5% for their costs. (http://www.spi-inc.org/projects/associated-project-howto/) Philipp On Mon, Apr 1, 2013 at 4:17 AM, Jimmy Kaplowitz <ji...@debian.org> wrote: > Hi David, > > On Sun, Mar 31, 2013 at 02:59:10PM -0400, David Prévot wrote: > > >> However, your message seems to imply that other methods of donation > don't > > >> carry equivalent fees, which unfortunately they do. > > > > You’re comparing two really different things. On one side, a for profit > > bank like company, on the other, a non for profit trusted organization. > > For fairness, I encourage you to compare the PayPal fees to those of a > bank. > > SPI's not-for-profit trusted organization status is only relevant for the > 5% > fee taken out of some donations - even for non-PayPal donations to SPI, the > companies that handle the credit and debit card processing are for-profit, > and > their fees aren't necessarily lower than PayPal's. SPI's reluctance to use > PayPal directly isn't about saving on percentage fees or using nonprofit > vendors, it's about other concerns with them that lead to an unfavorable > cost/benefit analysis in the case of SPI. > > > >> The debit card plus processing fees there seem to sum to about 4.4%, > > >> meaning that 9.4% of the donated amounts didn't reach Debian, using > > >> non-Paypal payment methods. > > > > Once checked the actual numbers (on all possible payment ways) — if I > > understood Jimmy Kaplowitz correctly, your numbers are exaggerated —, > > would it be possible to include (a link to) them from the > > monetary-support page? > > "Calculated slightly wrong" is more what I meant than "exaggerated" - I > don't > think Moray's numbers are off by enough to refute his point, except for > some > minor detail corrections. > > - Jimmy Kaplowitz > ji...@debian.org > _______________________________________________ > Debconf-team mailing list > Debconf-team@lists.debconf.org > http://lists.debconf.org/mailman/listinfo/debconf-team >
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