The Offshore Merchant Account Advantage After listing by US banks, payment processing lifelines are offered via offshore merchant accounts in jurisdictions such as Malta, Cyprus, or Mauritius. These accounts are subject to different regulatory frameworks, allowing for greater chargeback limits (as high as 3%) and accommodating industries such as gaming, forex, and adult entertainment. Established […]
Decoding Payment Processor Risk Assessments Payment gateways use a multi-tiered underwriting framework that considers many more variables than just credit scores. The automated screening on the front end first checks for MATCH/TMF list status and negative press mentions, as well as domain registration history. Human underwriters then look for suspicious cash flows within bank statements […]
Global Banking Partners for High-Risk Merchants Before, a few foreign banks opened up for some very high-risk businesses that suited their own particular styles. Alternatives found around Europe such as Bank of Valletta (Malta) or Transactive Systems (London, UK) are geared toward game and forex gambling. Specific restricted businesses with licensing are permitted within the […]
Understanding Payment Hold Triggers Unexpected activity, such as a sudden increase in order volume greater than 50 percent, high-risk orders from abroad, or odd customer behavior such as several different attempts by the same card, usually prompts payment processors to hold funds. As soon as a hold is placed, notify the merchant account manager with […]
The Art of Processing Millions Without Triggering Alerts Of course, managing extremely high volumes even beyond the benchmark of about $100,000 in a month requires volume-wise careful management against freezing. All acquirers will look for velocity “violations” such as more than three times your monthly approved volume or individual transactions that cross 10 percent of […]
Behind the Scenes of High-Risk Approvals High-risk merchant accounts go hand in hand with the hidden rules of payment processors. Getting accepted means proving business stability—prepare to present 6 months’ worth of processing statements exhibiting consistent increase in volume and chargeback rate lower than 1%. Underwriters love “seasoned” businesses, so instead of starting from scratch, […]
The Suspension Red Flags Every Merchant Must Avoid Payment processors have scores of suspension triggers in addition to chargeback ratios. Such hidden triggers are: changing product mix like CBD into a supplement shop; running to marketing venues that could cause unknown affiliate traffic spikes; and too many orders from areas mostly associated with high fraud-or […]
The Truth About “Instant Approval” Payment Processing A few payment facilitators, such as Stripe and Square, usually allow onboarding in conjunction with near-instant account approval. Actual merchant accounts always, nonetheless, require some documentation, albeit this could sometimes be delayed. There are generally three sets of reasons for the apparent “no docs” approach: 1) Aggregators using […]
The Underground Market of Sham Merchant Accounts They are shadow companies, selling illegitimate “stealth” merchant accounts with all the phony information of a fictitious business; ordinarily, such businesses may probably only last for about 30-90 days before they fail. Red flags include requesting unusual documentation from vendors (e,g. a utility bill in another name), along […]
Defeating the Rolling Reserve Trap During the past, high-risk merchant accounts had a rolling reserve of 5-10% for 180 days, which severely hampered their cash flow. Today the new thoughts have come along, setting up alternative structures that either remove or reduce reserves. Some offshore processors, such as PaySpacelv, offer reserve insurance—the merchant pays a […]