How to register a high-risk merchant account?
To be successful, it is important for any company to establish a smooth and fast process for accepting payments from its customers. First, a company needs to understand what considered a high-risk business merchant account and how to get instant approval for a high-risk merchant account. After all, where will customers send money for purchases of goods if the company doesn’t have an account?
Opening an account is necessary for any firm, and if for some reason it falls into the high risk category, it will need to consider how to open a high risk offshore merchant account. Not all firms will be able to do so, and those that will agree to provide such a service, will probably require you to pay a large commission and offer you less favorable rates.
Once a high-risk credit card processing merchant account is open, you will have no barriers and can successfully accept orders from customers through your website. Moreover, processing companies will be able to offer you other useful services that are not directly related to accepting payments and will allow you to manage your business effectively.
Why is a company classified as high risk?
There are many factors that can affect this. For example, there could be a high number of fraudulent transactions and chargebacks. If your company is breaking sales records every month, that’s a good sign for you, but it also increases the level of risk. Another factor is sales in high-risk or sanctioned countries. If you took out loans and did not repay them or violated payment discipline, your chances of opening a standard account will also be lower.
Unfortunately, companies like PayPal, Square, and other well-known organiations don’t want to work with high-risk companies, with their rates and features being considered among the best. But don’t worry, not many firms do. The competition on the payment market is so high that even those companies that previously did not agree to open high-risk accounts under any pretext are now trying to meet clients’ needs.
How to register a high risk merchant account?
There are several steps that every merchant must go through to get a high-risk merchant account:
- Understand what services your company needs. Imagine this situation: you receive services and have to pay for them, but you are not going to use them. Therefore, they will simply become an extra burden for your already small budget. After all, since you are opening a high-risk account, you will already have to pay higher fees.
- Do a thorough monitoring of the offers. Yes, not everyone will want to open a high-risk account, but many will. So you will surely have a choice and it is advisable not to rush to make it as quickly as possible.
- Make sure that the company you choose accurately has all the resources and permits to provide services to your firm. This is especially important for specific types of activities. Do not try to look for a cheapest payment gateway. Usually such companies hide poor service under low charges;
- Ask all the questions you can. Not every company puts absolutely all the necessary information on their website. So you’ll need to personally communicate with its managers and find all the answers to all questions about fees and commissions, as well as how quickly the account will be opened and services will begin to be provided.
- Apply. This process won’t take you very long, but prepare for the fact that the company will ask for all the detailed information. After all, by opening an account for your company, it also assumes high risks and does not want to incur losses. For this reason it needs to know as much as possible about your company and its activities, which is only natural.
- Communication with the employee responsible for security. This stage you definitely can’t avoid, and its purpose is the same as in the previous stage. The payment processing company wants to minimize the possible risks of cooperation with you.
- Requesting additional documents. These may be permits, licenses, certificates, insurance contracts, etc.
- Bank statements. As soon as all the requested documents have been carefully checked and the provider is sure that he has not forgotten anything, he will send a package with your documents to a banking institution. There these documents will also be checked, the terms of such a check can be from 2 to 10 days.
- Underwriting. When all the steps are successfully passed and the application is sent for underwriting, it means that with a high probability the account will be opened. Wait for confirmation and you will have access to your account and will be able to accept payments from clients.
It’s important to understand that high-risk companies have a good chance of opening an account and doing business. The only thing is that the process of opening such an account may take longer and the service will cost more.
The bottom line
For those merchants who start an online business or have already launched it but, for some reason, are looking for a high-risk merchant account provider, we at PayOp have the solution.
Our company is a full-cycle third party payment gateway provider. The platform operates globally and offers the following features:
- A wide range of payment methods, both traditional( bank cards) and alternative ones;
- Multicurrency processing. With the dynamic currency conversion users can pay at the current exchange rate;
- Mass payouts;
- Multiple withdrawal options, etc.
To apply for a PayOp payment gateway, please, create a free account and send us documentation for verification. Once all the documents are being sent, it will take no longer than 5 business days for our compliance team to verify them.
Find more about PayOp on our solutions page.
