US online payment firm Stripe launches services in Slovenia, seven other EU states

Businesses in Slovenia, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, and Slovakia can now start accepting payments in over 130 currencies in as little as 10 minutes, Stripe said in a statement earlier this week.

"Central and Eastern Europe has a lot of entrepreneurial and technological talent, and we believe even more of its companies could be expanding globally," the head of Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa at Stripe, Felix Huber, said in the statement. "Stripe aims to empower more companies from this region to export their creativity and ambition to the rest of the world."

Moreover, companies can use Stripe also to handle accounting, billing, paying out to third parties and optimising for mobile payments, the company said, adding that Stripe also helps businesses minimise online fraud via its security safeguards against fraudulent transactions.