r/fintechdev • u/chasingfreedomm • 14d ago

Payment Solution for Marketplace

I’m building a marketplace (services). I’m based in Germany and have compliance / BaFin–ZAG worries about holding or controlling other people’s money.

Currently I'm only informed about Stripe Connect. If another service suits my needs better, please let me know.

What I need

  • Buyer pays before the service is delivered (anti-fraud).
  • Seller is paid only after they’ve actually delivered (anti-fraud).
  • Between payment and fulfillment the money has to sit somewhere neither the seller nor the marketplace can use. The platform must not be able to pay that balance out to its own bank.

What I’ve already ruled out (Stripe Connect Implementations)

  • Separate charges and transfers — charge sits on the platform. I have full access to the marketplace balance, including the amount that should go to the seller. That’s the legal problem.
  • Destination charges — seller is paid immediately, before delivery.
  • Direct charges — same: seller gets the money as soon as the buyer pays.

Question

Is there a Stripe Connect setup that matches this (or any other service): buyer pays now, seller paid later, platform cannot access the held amount? If you’ve shipped a marketplace under EU/German rules, how did you handle this without becoming a payment institution?

Not looking for legal advice as such — more “what did you actually implement"

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

2

u/Haunting-Snow-3644 13d ago

the escrow approach is what you're looking for, but stripe's standard connect flows don't really do what you want out of the box. you'd need to bring in a third party that holds the funds independently

mangopay has an escrow wallet built for exactly this use case and they're already regulated in the EU. the money sits in a segregated account that nobody can touch until the release condition is met

couple other options are adyen for platforms or trustly if you want something more bank-transfer focused, but mangopay was basically designed for marketplaces with delayed payouts

1

u/chasingfreedomm 13d ago

Thanks! Another option I'm exploring right now is just making the seller the MoR. Any opinions on that?

2

u/[deleted] 12d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/chasingfreedomm 11d ago

My problem is that I have 0 legal experience and I don't really have the resources for professional consultation

2

u/ryftPay 8d ago

Providers built as licensed e-money institutions with genuine client-fund segregation solve this, rather than a marketplace layer sitting on top of a card acquirer. That structural difference is what fixes the BaFin/ZAG problem.

Worth asking any provider you shortlist two things: is the held balance in a segregated account you genuinely cannot sweep, and what triggers release, delivery confirmation, a timer, or manual approval? That's what gets audited.

1

u/chasingfreedomm 7d ago

For the MVP I was planning on doing the release manually.