Many merchants who conduct business on the Internet are not aware of what they really apply for when they decided to accept credit card payments on their website.

To apply for a Merchant Account by any bank or payment processor is not just a application and isn’t without risk for the Acquiring Bank, therefore Visa and Mastercard put towards merchants regulative which helps protecting the Acquiring Banks and the Payment Processors against fraud and huge losses.

Merchants which apply for a Merchant Account often set in question why all the documents are needed, why they have to prove their identity and other stuff just for accepting credit cards. Well, you must look at it in a different way, what you are really asking for is someone that need to give you credit or a “loan” and have them to believe that you do regular business and deliver your services and products according to your Terms and Conditions. The case is that once the Merchant got the first payment from the Acquiring Bank or the Payment Processor then there is a possibility for the Merchants customers to make a chargeback on whatever they bought, a chargeback can be issued by the customer within 180 days after a credit card transaction took place. Some Merchants start a business to later on to find out that it don’t work for them, they don’t get visitors or are simply fail in their mission to run a Internet Business, however the few sales they might have made or even a large number of sales for a short period, lives the Acquiring Bank with the risk of Chargebacks, and if the Merchant in the meantime went out of business then it can be difficult to come back to the merchant and claim the los.

While above made a “hole” for fraudsters in the Merchant Acquiring business, then Visa and Mastercard set forth regulations for Acquiring Banks  and Payment Processors to protect them self from conducting business with several business constellations and products and services which are allowed to be sold.

For instant some of the well known high risk segments are Online Gambling, Pharmacy business, Adult Entertainment and Sports Betting websites. Those, are complicated to place due to several fraud incidence in the past and for the pharmacy business while it is often the case they are selling controlled drugs or replicated medicine.

While you decided to start accepting credit card payments on your website, I would suggest you to write down a brief description of your business, how you will handle your orders, which you will go and sell to, which countries, and of course if your services or products need a license then attach it. Submit everything to the Payment Processor, ISO or who you want to open the account with and let them deal with everything. You will often be able to get a Approval or Decline within 48 hours, if your application declines, you will get information about why, that enables you to make corrections to your business case an resubmit it to another Merchant Acquire