Payments & Stripe

All payments are handled by Stripe. When a client books a session with you, they pay the session fee through Stripe's secure checkout, and Stripe pays your share out to the Stripe account you connect when you join.

Mind Friend runs the booking platform. Stripe moves the money. We never handle card numbers or bank account numbers ourselves.

Stripe is a global financial technology company that processes online payments for businesses of every size, from sole traders to some of the largest companies in the world. It handles card payments, payouts to bank accounts, identity checks and fraud prevention.

In the UK, Stripe Payments UK Ltd is authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority as an electronic money institution (FCA reference number 900461). For Mind Friend, payment processing and payouts are provided by Stripe Payments Europe Ltd, based in Ireland, as listed on our Third-party Providers page.

According to Stripe, its technology is used by millions of companies around the world, including Amazon, Google and Zoom. If you have paid for something online, there's a good chance Stripe processed it.

Using the same payment infrastructure as these companies means your clients' payments and your payouts are protected by the same security and compliance standards.

No. Card numbers, bank account numbers, and the identity documents Stripe asks for are entered directly into Stripe's own secure forms. They never pass through or get saved on Mind Friend's servers, and our team cannot see them.

What Mind Friend does keep is limited to what we need to run bookings: a payment reference from Stripe (not your card or bank details), and the booking and payment records for each session, such as the date, the amount and whether it was paid or refunded. This is described in our Privacy Policy.

You set your own session fee and cancellation policy, and clients see both before they book. Clients then pay the session fee by card through Stripe's secure checkout. Their card details go to Stripe only.

When you join, you connect a Stripe account through a short onboarding flow hosted by Stripe. You add your bank account there, directly with Stripe. After each paid session, your share is paid out by Stripe to that bank account.

Payout timing, holds and dispute handling follow the Stripe Connected Account Agreement you accept during onboarding. You can see your payments and payouts at any time in your dashboard.

Regulated payment providers are required by law to verify who they pay money to. This helps prevent fraud and money laundering. Stripe may ask for your name, date of birth, address, a photo ID and tax information.

You give these details to Stripe, not to Mind Friend. Stripe uses them for its own legal checks, and we don't receive copies of your documents.

Stripe is certified as a PCI Service Provider Level 1, the most stringent level of certification in the payments industry. Among other protections, Stripe:

• encrypts all card numbers at rest with AES-256, and treats bank account details the same way;
• keeps card data in a separate, isolated environment that only a small number of specially trained engineers can access;
• is independently audited every year (SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type II reports);
• requires secure, encrypted connections (HTTPS) for every service.

You can read more on Stripe's security page.

Refunds are processed through Stripe and go back to the client's original payment method. When a client is due a refund under the Client Service Agreement, it is made from that session's fee, in line with your cancellation policy.

Write to us at talk@mindfriend.com or use our contact form. A member of our team will reply, and we're happy to walk you through Stripe onboarding on a short call.

For questions about a specific payout or your Stripe account, you can also contact Stripe directly from your Stripe Express dashboard.