Because then you can do business in the US (largest English speaking client base) without any trouble?
And accepting debit cards (especially US cards) is still quite hard in most of the world afaik, aside from the UK, so this is a godsend to any entrepreneurs who want a real chance at success.
This was actually the dream just half a decade ago, to incorporate in the US without having to actually get a visa and go there and easily conduct business with anyone in the world...
Nowadays, it's not as pressing, but still a great service imo...
Accepting cards from most locations isn't actually difficult any longer with Stripe, Braintree, Paymill, and others. US cards aren't special in terms of being able to accept them; they're just regular Visa/MC/Amex/Discover/whatever cards.
The neglected payment methods are the country specific ones. Some major countries have very low credit-card penetration, for example in the Netherlands. The common internet payment method there is iDEAL which is a kind of two factor authenticated bank transfer. Even debit cards in the Netherlands have two distinguishing features: there isn't a PAN number on the card which makes it impossible[0] to use online in the way you'd use an embossed Visa/MasterCard, and the Dutch banks all issue their debit cards under the Maestro and V-Pay schemes.
[0] Not really, but very few people know what their debit card's PAN number is. It's possible to calculate the hidden PAN number as it's usually just a regular Maestro card, or to just scan it off the card using NFC and an appropriate app.
(I work for Stripe) Hey! Yes we're definitely aware of the need to take into account local payment landscapes that can be quite specific (you rightly mentioned iDEAL in the Netherlands, there's also EPS in Austria, Bancontact/MrCash in Belgium, to name a few others in Europe...). We're working on this and I'd be happy to connect to learn more about your needs. My email is just gabriel at, feel free to reach out!
And accepting debit cards (especially US cards) is still quite hard in most of the world afaik, aside from the UK, so this is a godsend to any entrepreneurs who want a real chance at success.
This was actually the dream just half a decade ago, to incorporate in the US without having to actually get a visa and go there and easily conduct business with anyone in the world...
Nowadays, it's not as pressing, but still a great service imo...