Online payments company Stripe has entered the Australian market with the claim that its platform will remove the "barriers" and "friction" that traditional merchant payment processing systems put in the way of businesses entering the e-commerce market.Stripe provides a processing service for businesses wanting to take payments online. Its pitch is that its service is simpler than the alternatives, is developer-friendly (so it can be incorporated into websites and apps) and handles foreign exchange "seamlessly".According to iTnews, the Stripe technology allows the transaction details to remain with the merchant's app or web page, rather than being redirected to a third party (such as PayPal or an app store).The four-year old company is based in San Francisco and operates in 17 countries. Some media coverage has suggested that Stripe is here to challenge PayPal's position in online payments.According to researcher RFi, PayPal dominates online payments, with more than half of consumers who purchase online saying they prefer to use it.However, Stripe is not a consumer service. It will compete in the same market as PayPal's subsidiary Braintree, which is a merchant payments processor.Stripe has partnered with National Australia Bank to handle funds transfers.Its charges are 1.75 per cent plus 30 cents for a domestic transaction and 2.9 per cent plus 30 cents for international and American Express transactions.