In January, Stripe updated their account holder verification process to comply with regulatory "Know Your Customer" (KYC) obligations, which require collecting and maintaining specific information to protect the financial system. The information Stripe must collect varies by country, but generally includes details about the individual creating the Stripe account, the associated business, and the individuals who own or control that account.
Since the rollout, we've identified issues where customers missed deadlines to submit the requested information or were confused about what to upload. This led to interruptions for both payments and payouts, or even entire account rejections by Stripe’s risk team.
In response, both Planning Center and Stripe have implemented improvements to address these challenges and ease the process of meeting these regulatory requirements.
Planning Center’s Improvements
- Notification Banner: Earlier this summer, we introduced a notification banner in Giving to alert you if you have urgent action items. We’ve expanded these alerts to also include requests from Stripe’s risk team. This aims to increase the likelihood that the individuals with access to manage your Stripe account receive these alerts in time to resolve them and prevent payment or payout restrictions.
- Warning Emails: Planning Center sends warning emails to admins and bookkeepers when we detect there is a problem with your Stripe account. We made improvements to ensure you are receiving warnings anytime you have an account verification action item that is currently due, in addition to when they become past due. This should help reduce missed deadlines.
Note: These emails do not trigger for action items initiated by Stripe’s risk team. For those, you will need to rely on the warning emails sent directly from Stripe and the notification banners in Giving.
- Integrated Workflow: You can now submit required information directly in Giving. Alerts will guide you to log in to Stripe via a modal to complete any pending action items.
- Better Support Escalations: Planning Center now has an enterprise support contract with Stripe. That means if you hit any snags or dead ends with Stripe support, we can escalate the issue more effectively over at Stripe and get the issue resolved quicker.
Stripe’s Improvements
- Expanded Document Acceptance: Stripe has broadened the types of documents accepted for identity, address, and legal entity verification.
- Workflow Enhancements: Stripe is enhancing the verification process to increase clarity and reduce potential confusion, with updates set for mid-September.
Please review your Stripe account contact
If you’re unable to log in to your Stripe account because the account admin is no longer with your church, please reach out to our support team. We’ll coordinate with Stripe to restore your access before it becomes critical.
You can view your current Stripe account admin on the Stripe Info page in Giving.
If you experience any difficulties, don’t hesitate to reach out to our support team. We are here to help!
💛 Team Giving