You might be asking yourself if your business is high risk or what you need to do when your business gets as one and how to choose the best high-risk merchant account provider for your needs. In this article, we explain this and discuss the benefits of having a high-risk merchant account. Let’s discuss.
What is a high-risk product?
This is a product or service sold by a merchant who operates within a high-risk industry. These may include magazine subscription services, debt consolidation, nutraceuticals, travel, multi-level marketing, and many more.
Therefore, a high-risk merchant account helps a merchant who is considered high risk to accept debit or credit card transactions. These accounts are optimized for merchants whose business practices may result in a potential loss for merchant account providers or banks that grant them account services. Or those susceptible to high chargeback ratios.
In most instances, a business is considered high risk if it operates within an industry known as high risk. Even so, some operate outside of these industries that are still considered high risk if they offer subscription plans, free trials, have a high chargeback ratio, poor credit history, sell questionable products or services, engage in high-cost purchases, and so on. Such businesses need to apply for a high-risk merchant account.
Benefits of having a high-risk merchant account
Protection against chargebacks
A high-risk merchant account will protect you against chargebacks. When this happens on a high-risk account, there are protection measures to help prevent fraudulent activities.
A further benefit of these accounts is that they have a streamlined and seamless setup process. This is especially appealing if you offer a variety of services. The process is effortless in that it’s done online. And in most cases, your application will get approved fast. That allows your business to hit the ground running as quickly as expected.
Better money management
High-risk merchant processing allows you to begin accepting digital payments. That means that you get more organized and better manage your cash flow. The ideal provider will deliver daily status updates for your transactions, and this will make it effortless to see if you’re making profits, how to handle taxes, and so on.
In other words, a high-risk merchant account will help you track and view all your payment activities for transparency and better cash management.
If identified as a high-risk merchant, it can be challenging to find a fair deal on high-risk merchant processing. To help, some of the tips to bear in mind include:
Experience
When choosing a high-risk merchant account provider, you want to ensure that they have the relevant experience and have been in the industry for a long time. With that, it means that they have acquired a significant network of high-risk banks in the industry. It also means that their staff have spent many years in the high-risk space formulating and strengthening their network of local and international banking partners. This helps them provide diversified solutions for your specific high-risk merchant account.
With their many years in high-risk merchant processing, they understand the ideal fit for each high-risk merchant account category and have varying solutions for your business type. Remember, the more years in the industry, the better their services.
Security
Security is paramount when choosing the best high-risk merchant account provider. You want to consider one who is keen on secure processing and utilizes fraud-prevention services. Also, ensure that the provider has no previous safety issues.
The best one will have a proven track record of keeping customer and business information safe and secure and is known to have top-of-the-line security.
They should also have risk-management tools for your high-risk merchant account. These prevention tools will keep your high-risk merchant account healthy for the long term. They will also help to deal with a chargeback dispute system, prevent fraud, ensure a reliable and secure payment platform, give you alerts to curb chargebacks, and offer a customized processing strategy for your business.
Fast and high approvals
Another factor to consider when choosing the best high-risk merchant account provider is fast approvals. Their application process should be online and seamless. And be integrated with many banks. The application and approval process should also be quick so that your business can begin accepting credit cards as soon as possible.
Since they have a massive network of banking solutions, they need to have tested all of them to ensure that your application will only get submitted to institutions that work with your type of business. That will save you time.
Outstanding customer service
When choosing a high-risk merchant account provider, you want to ensure that they offer outstanding customer support to all their clients. Their agents should be available to guide you even as you make your application and help throughout the process. Whether you have general payment processing inquiries or need assistance completing the application, they should be hands-on to help.
Also, their high-risk merchant account payment advisors should be equipped with all the knowledge to help and guide you on their services. These include daily account monitoring and management, customer service testing, ensure longstanding bank relationships, pre-approved backup banks, and related services.
Stellar reviews
Before agreeing to sign any contracts with a high-risk merchant account provider, ensure to read their reviews. Go to their website and see what varying customers have to say about their services. That will give you more insights about them and help you decide if you should proceed to work with them or not.
A high-risk merchant account provider with negative customer reviews or a sketchy-looking website can tip you that their services are unreliable.
Be sure to check that they are accredited by the Better Business Bureau (BBB). That shows that they support its efforts to promote integrity and truth. The best high-risk merchant account provider has A+ ratings.
Final thoughts
If you are considered a high-risk merchant, high-risk merchant processing may sound too expensive for you. Yet, this does not mean that you need to get ripped off of all your profits. The tips discussed above will help you find reputable services for your needs.
