Why?

Stripe is the external payment gateway that Honswer uses to process payments (both from the requestor and towards the honswerers). 

Using this independent third-party allows us not to have to store and deal directly with credit card numbers, etc. And provides our users with the peace of mind of knowing that their financial details are handled by a fully compliant and and highly secure  payment gateway. 

When?

You only need to setup/login to your current Stripe account in two situations: when you add a prize to your request and/or when you have been awarded an prize for one of your honswers. 

Allocating a prize to a request (Payment method)

In order to publish a prized request, you will have to fund your request upfront with the value of your total prize. The first time you go through this process, when finalizing your request, you will be taken to the Stripe portal where you'll login to a Stripe account or enter the details of a credit card. Note that you don't actually need to create a Stripe account as long as you enter your credit card details. This process is fairly common and available in most regions of the world.  

Receiving my prize award (Rewards account)

In order to receive your award, you will need to create/log into a Stripe Connect account. The whole process can be started from your Honswer's user settings page and you only need to do it once you have been awarded a prize, which you'll be informed of by e-mail. 

The type of information required to be able to create a Stripe Connect account depends on your country and its legislation. This part of the process is handled entirely by Stripe and, while we'll do what we can to help you if you encounter issues, most support regarding Stripe connect account creation should be requested from Stripe directly.