GigaOM | Kevin Fitchard | Jan 6, 2015

Crowdfunding powerhouse Kickstarter is taking its $529 million in annual pledges and moving them to a different payment processor. In a blog post Tuesday, Kickstarter revealed it is ditching Amazon Payments and has selected online and mobile payments specialist Stripe to handle its global credit card payments.

The move means that both making a Kickstarter pledge and running a crowdfunding campaign will be easier since Stripe’s tools will be integrated directly into the Kickstarter site. Project creators will no longer have to create an Amazon Payments business account or wait several days to register. Instead they’ll just enter their bank account details into their Kickstarter profiles, and payments will be deposited directly into their accounts once a project is successfully funded.

Project backers, meanwhile, won’t be redirected to Amazon’s portal or required to log into or create an Amazon account. They’ll just enter their payment details on the project pledge page or call up saved credit card information from their Kickstarter accounts.

Amazon processed U.S. projects only, while Kickstarter relied on other payment processors ] to handle its international traffic. Stripe, however, will become Kickstarter’s global processor. The U.S. card transaction fees will stay the same – between 3 and 5 percent – though international Kickstarter users may see their fee structures change when Stripe’s payments engine goes live for all new projects.

Kickstarter said in the blog post that Amazon has discontinued the version of its Payments platform that it used (Amazon has moved to a new payments system and Kickstarter didn’t make the transition) so it began looking for a new partner. It’s a blow for Amazon because Kickstarter was one of its most high-profile payments customers.

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