High-risk e-commerce

High-risk e-commerce and payments

A business is "high risk" for acquirers when it has elevated chargeback rates, regulatory exposure or reputational risk: forex and CFD, crypto, dating, nutra, prop trading firms, subscriptions, replica goods, essay services. Mainstream processors often decline these merchants, so a high risk merchant account usually comes from specialised acquirers, offshore banks, aggregators with cascading or P2P processing.

Who uses this page

• Merchants who need to accept payments for forex, crypto, dating, nutra or prop trading and are looking for a partner.
• High-risk PSPs and acquirers who want to find merchants in this vertical and respond to their requests.

How to pick a high risk payment gateway

• Acceptance of your vertical in writing, with the MCC it will be processed under.
• Rolling reserve and settlement — typical reserves and holds, payout frequency.
• Chargeback tools — 3DS, alerts, antifraud and chargeback management.
• Cascading across several acquirers to keep approval rates up.
• Local methods in your target GEOs — see payment methods.
• Licensing — the provider's own licences and what documents you must provide for KYB.

The best payment gateway for high risk ecommerce is the one that approves your exact business model and GEO mix, not the one with the lowest headline rate.

Using the tabs

Companies lists merchants in the vertical, Offers shows terms from providers, and Requests shows active searches. Browse all payment providers or post a request describing your volumes, GEOs and chargeback history.