Kickstarter drops Amazon payments

Crowdsourced fundraising site Kickstarter confirmed yesterday that it has dropped Amazon as its global payments processor and moved to Stripe, the platform used by Apple, Twitter and Facebook.

The switch comes as the internet retailer begins to move clients from its customizable checkout service to an Amazon-branded one.

In a blog post, Kickstarter said it made the switch after Amazon decided to drop its flexible payments service, which allows a company to develop its own checkout process. The new Amazon-branded login and pay service does not offer the same level of flexibility.

Amazon's payments division has processed more than US $1 billion (A$1.24 billion) in Kickstarter pledges and had worked with the site even before its launch in 2009. An Amazon spokesman declined to comment.

Some analysts have said Amazon has been held back in payments because merchants are wary of handing over customer's data to the company, which is rapidly expanding into new areas and competing with sellers.

The Stripe payments gateway is backed by NAB in Australia.