Why SSN and personal information is required for Stripe | Playground Help Center (2024)

FAQs

Why SSN and personal information is required for Stripe | Playground Help Center? ›

This information is required as part of Stripe's mandatory identity verification requirement: Stripe must collect, verify, and maintain information on the individuals associated with every US Stripe account, as required by our regulators and financial partners.

This is intended to promote transparency and prevent individuals from using complex company structures to hide terrorist financing, money laundering, tax evasion, and other financial crimes.

These requirements come from our regulators and are intended to prevent abuse of the financial system, provide your potential customers with clear and useful information, and prevent material loss to your business or to Stripe. You can read more on that here.

Stripe ensures the security of verification data through encrypted connections, access controls, and by limiting access to only those who require it. Stripe will only use your verification data in accordance with the consent you granted before starting the verification process and our Privacy Policy.

Domain verification

We may need to contact you to confirm that you own the website connected to your Stripe account, or understand why you don't have ownership over your website, to ensure the products or services you're selling there are in compliance with the Stripe Services Agreement.

If you have a US account and your business type is: Individual, Sole proprietor or Single membership LLC, we are required to collect your full personal tax ID - SSN or ITIN. If you do not have one of those, we may prompt you to enter your nationality. The nationality field is your country of citizenship.

In addition, Stripe will only use your financial account information as outlined in Stripe's Privacy Policy, including to: Verify your bank account. Facilitate the processing of your requested payments. Mitigate fraud, financial loss, or other harm to you, your merchant, and Stripe.

If Stripe obtains your financial institution login credentials, we do not share them with your merchant. Although most financial institutions provide Stripe with access to all of the data associated with your accounts, we will only use your financial account information as outlined in our Privacy Policy.

Stripe encrypts sensitive data both in transit and at rest. Stripe's infrastructure for storing, decrypting, and transmitting primary account numbers (PANs), such as credit card numbers, runs in a separate hosting infrastructure, and doesn't share any credentials with the rest of our services.

Stripe may share information regarding a Business User and the Business User's Representative with a payment method provider when a payment method is enabled and when Stripe processes transactions involving the payment method.

Can I trust Stripe with my SSN? ›

Stripe collects your information with complete security and purpose. We use Stripe to handle our KYC (Know Your Customer) and AML (Anti-Money Laundering) checks in compliance with federal law in order to process your payments. We do not store any of this information and only use it for compliance checks.

Payouts are sent to the bank account on file at the time the payout is initiated. If that account is closed, banks will then either inform Stripe that the bank account is closed and return the funds to your account automatically or contact you directly to disperse the funds.

Founded in 2011, Stripe is a popular payment processing and merchant services company. It is accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and maintains an A+ rating. Stripe offers a global payment system that can accept more than 135 currencies with transparent pricing and discounts for high-volume merchants.

Stripe is required by our financial partners to collect phone numbers associated with the business/legal entity and/or the persons associated with the Stripe account. This information helps Stripe further understand the business and the persons associated with the account.

Both Proof of ID and Proof of Home Address document uploads must be successfully reviewed and matched to the information in your Stripe account before your identity can be verified. Reviews can take up to 24 hours.

Stripe Identity helps businesses verify your identity by validating your government ID document and using biometric information to verify that the ID document belongs to you. Below are resources to help you better understand how you can manage the data captured in that process and how your data is kept safe.

In other words, yes, Stripe does report to the IRS. If you use the platform to collect payment for your goods or services, the agency will typically know how much you earned during each tax year. If you report a lower amount on your tax return, it will mail you a letter and investigate the discrepancy.

With Stripe Identity, we were able to build a progressive verification experience. We start with an ID number check, and if that fails we automatically ask for an ID document. This lets us keep our community safe without adding unnecessary friction.

Standards and regulations compliance. Stripe uses best-in-class security practices to maintain a high level of security.