RecoupIQ • UK Merchant & Counterparty Risk Infrastructure
Executive Risk Briefing: Stripe UK
UK Entity: STRIPE PAYMENTS UK LTD (CRN: 08480771) • Segment: Payment Gateways, Rails & Embedded Banking
Prepared for Leadership: John Collison (Director) • Patrick Collison (Director)
CONFIDENTIAL BRIEFING
Prepared by Alex • Founder, RecoupIQ
Statutory Accounts Basis: FYE 31 December 2024
What RecoupIQ Offers Stripe UK • At a Glance
Stop UK Merchant Defaults & Section 75 / Chargeback Write-Offs Before Payout Leaves Your Bank
1. What We Provide
<150ms Pre-Payout Gate
Pass any UK CRN before T+1 payout, reserve release, or advance. Returns ALLOW, HOLD, or BLOCK with a SHA-256 audit certificate.
2. Why You Need It Now
30–60 Days Ahead of Bureaus
Experian/Creditsafe & card fraud tools miss live London Gazette Rule 7.10 Winding-Up Petitions, Section 127 void dispositions, and sudden director resignations.
3. Modeled Value
£289k–£426k / yr
Modeled against Stripe UK’s £1.50m audited impairment & £642k provisions.
4. How To Start & Cost
£0 Backtest → £1,495/mo
Test 10–50 past merchant write-offs for £0 today. Production shadow pilot is £1,495/mo (or £0.05/check) with zero lock-in.
The Settlement & Default Timing Gap: Across both B2B (merchant cash advances, trade credit, corporate payouts) and C2B (consumer card acquiring, BNPL, POS retail finance, and Open Banking checkout), when a UK merchant collapses, legacy credit bureaus update 30 to 90 days late. During that window, Stripe UK continues sweeping T+1 payouts or carrying unhedged consumer Section 75 / Visa & Mastercard “Services Not Rendered” chargeback liability against an insolvent UK limited company. RecoupIQ closes this window with a synchronous
<150ms pre-payout and pre-onboarding gate across 5.3M UK companies.1. Statutory Risk Profile & Modeled Annual Savings (STRIPE PAYMENTS UK LTD)
Audited P&L Impairment
£1.50m
Source: Refer to Note 3.10 and Note 11 for accounting policy and specific disclosures regarding impairment review.
Balance Sheet Provisions
£642k
Source: Note 15 (Leasehold refurbishment provision). No separate quantified allowance for expected credit losses/doubtful debts/clawbacks/indemnity provisions is explicitly presented on the balance sheet or in other notes.
15% Loss Pre-emption
£225k – £330k
Annual bad-debt & chargeback avoidance
Total Annual Benefit
£289k – £426k
Combined EBITDA + IFRS 9 reserve release
Audited Turnover & Result: £896,450,092 • Operating Result: £16,138,728 • Net Result: £16,127,502
Wholesale / Senior Debt Facilities: Total Borrowings: £1,000,000 (Loans due to group undertakings, Note 13). Overdraft Facility: £30,000,000 with Barclays Bank PLC (guaranteed by Stripe, Inc.), not utilised during the year (Note 20).
Statutory Audit Note Disclosure: Credit risk: Financial loss due to customer/counterparty failure, merchant failure, exposure to default and credit/fraud losses. Management states the Company does not ultimately bear these risks (Strategic Report, page 4-5). Merchant settlement risk is implicit in the nature of operations, involving balances owed to merchants, cash held for their benefit in segregated accounts, and merchant-owed amounts held in reserve (Note 3.12). Safeguarding risk: Failure to appropriately safeguard user assets. Managed through controls including reviews of safeguarding accounts, sweeps, reconciliations, KPIs, and banking partner reviews (Strategic Report, page 5).
2. What Payment Teams Use Today vs. Why Merchant Collapses Still Slip Through
| Existing Tooling Layer | What It Checks | The Structural Blind Spot | How RecoupIQ Closes It |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Legacy Credit Bureaus Experian, Creditsafe, Equifax, Dun & Bradstreet | Day-0 onboarding KYB & static annual balance sheets | 30-to-60 day batch lag on Gazette Winding-Up Petitions, High Court claims, and director resignations (TM01) | Day-1 Court, Gazette Rule 7.10 & Companies House streaming triggers before T+1 payout |
| 2. Transaction Fraud Engines Stripe Radar, Adyen RevenueProtect, Sift, Featurespace | Stolen consumer cards, BIN velocity, device fingerprinting | Zero visibility into whether the UK merchant (CRN) receiving the payout is about to enter liquidation | Scores the UK corporate counterparty (CRN) in <150ms (`ALLOW` | `HOLD` | `BLOCK`) |
| 3. Open Banking Consents Plaid, TrueLayer, Yapily AIS feeds | Merchant bank account balances (when connected) | 90-day OAuth re-authentication drop-off; distressed directors revoke bank feeds first | Zero merchant consent required; 100% continuous coverage across all 5.3M UK companies |
3. Commercial Pricing & Unit Economics (30x+ Single-Collapse ROI)
Step 1 • Proof of Value
£0 Historical Backtest
Test 10 to 50 of Stripe UK’s past merchant write-offs or chargeback defaults right now. We show the exact date RecoupIQ would have triggered
HOLD or BLOCK prior to collapse.Step 2 • Shadow Pilot / Growth API
£1,495/mo (or £0.05/check)
Includes 30,000 synchronous pre-payout checks/month + daily Gazette Rule 7.10, CCJ & director-exodus webhooks across your active UK merchant book.
The Payback Math
1 Intercept = 32x ROI
Preventing a single mid-sized UK merchant default or C2B chargeback wave (£48,500–£85,000 average loss) pays for 2.5+ years of the RecoupIQ API on day one.
Direct Founder Access • Zero NDA Required to Test
Run a 60-Second Backtest or Speak Directly With Alex
Paste 10 to 50 UK Company Registration Numbers (CRNs) into our self-serve backtest workbench, or email contact@recoup-iq.tech with your phone number and Alex will call you directly for a 10-minute walkthrough of Stripe UK’s statutory exposure model.