On the one-year anniversary of Dwolla‘s national launch, the Des Moines-based payment platform is celebrating with a gift for businesses that accept Dwolla for small transactions.
Dwolla CEO Ben Milne announced today in a blog post that all transactions of less than $10 on Dwolla are now free. Previously, Dwolla charged a flat fee of 25 cents for all transactions, regardless of size.
Although it’s still a bit hazy how Dwolla can afford to do this — Milne says more details regarding that will emerge on Dec. 15, when Dwolla is scheduled to host a meetup in Des Moines — the motivation behind the move and the parties that stand to benefit most from the decision are crystal clear.
So why is Dwolla doing this? In his blog post, Milne (below, photo courtesy of Milne) outlines three reasons:
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- Small businesses are something we genuinely care about. In our heads, the idea of Dwolla getting 25 cents for a 2 dollar coffee just sounds silly… It’s like using an AmEx card to buy a banana.
- There are a lot of costs besides the $50 billion interchange fees incurred by businesses when they take credit cards (e.g. a “short” list we found). Let’s talk about that, too.
- Micro transactions have never had a payment platform that allowed them to be valuable. Our API now allows anyone selling goods for $1 to actually keep its $1. Money should not depreciate in value as it changes hands.
Now, instead of a coffee shop coughing up 10 percent of a transaction for accepting Dwolla on the purchase of a $2.50 cup of Joe, that coffee sale is fee-free for the merchant. Other parties that Milne said he expects to benefit from Dwolla’s move include food trucks, micropayment platforms, paywalls and developers.
“Dwolla is hell bent on a core vision and value set: making this whole money thing as safe, fast, easy and cheap as possible,” Milne said. “It’s what has fueled our growth over the last year since going national, and to commemorate the anniversary we’re saying thanks in the only way we know how … By making your life better.”
Also today — which, it should be noted, is Milne’s 29th birthday — Dwolla unveiled a new, spruced-up look for its homepage.
“We thought a quick dress up of the initial page, better messaging, and access to more information would be helpful to the new users just finding out about us today,” Jordan Lampe, Dwolla’s director of communications, said in an email.
Check out a screenshot of the new look below, and stay tuned to Silicon Prairie News for more on today’s news, especially around Dec. 15, when Dwolla is expected to explain more of the “how” behind its elimination of fees.
