High-Risk Merchant Accounts with Instant Approval

Updated May 2024

What is a High-Risk Merchant Account?

A high-risk merchant has a higher likelihood of experiencing chargebacks, defaults on payments, fraud or other illegal activity, high return volume, and other risks. This is typically true of companies in a high-risk industry. A company may also be considered a high-risk merchant if the business owner has bad personal credit or is a brand-new merchant without a payment processing track record to analyze. These types of merchants often must use a high-risk merchant account to be able accept credit cards and debit payments.

Industries that are considered high-risk can make it difficult for merchants to get through the merchant account approval process. Many traditional payment processing solutions won't work with merchants in these industries. For example, a payment processor like Paypal or Stripe won't offer merchant services to merchants with high-risk accounts.

What Industries and Businesses Are Considered High-Risk Merchants?

Merchants in high-risk industries often find it difficult to obtain merchant accounts from payment processing companies. Banks or other financial institutions may see providing a merchant account to these businesses as a reputational risk. If your business falls in any of these categories, it most likely qualifies as a high-risk business. Don't worry though, there are other payment processing options for those in high-risk industries.

• Adult Products/Industry
• Alcohol
• Auto Warranties
• Bad Credit
• Bail Bonds
• CBD/Hemp
• Credit Monitoring
• Credit Repair
• Computer Software
• Continuity Billing
• Collections
• Cryptocurrency
• Dating
• Debt Collection, Consolidation, or Repayment
• Document Preparation
• E-Commerce
• Electronics
• Entertainment
• Firearms
• Gambling
• High Volume
• Multi-Level Marketing (MLM)
• Nutraceuticals
• Pawn Shops
• Sports
• Subscriptions
• Tech Support
• Timeshare Exit Services
• Tobacco
• Travel
• Vaping

If your business is included in a high-risk category on the list above, you'll most likely need to work with high-risk payment processors for your payment gateway solutions. We'll explain exactly how those work below.

How Do I Get Approved for a High-Risk Merchant Account?

The merchant account application process can be a tedious one, especially for merchants in a high-risk business industry. The merchant service provider has a list of requirements that you'll need to meet for high-risk merchant account approval. This list typically includes showing your TIN, certificate of incorporation and other corporate documents, bank statements, merchant passport and ID, and other financial statements. After this, you'll go through the underwriting process to get a score. This is an intense process that can often take weeks to complete. However, many payment processors are moving to an instant approval system.

With our instant approvals on high-risk accounts, you can get credit card processing solutions faster than ever. Many payment companies are learning that a quicker approval process means more satisfied customers.

As a result, merchant account providers such as Zen Payments are cutting down on the restrictions and streamlining the underwriting process. In turn, when you send in a merchant account application, your file can be reviewed by our automated systems and we can grant you instant approval in the case of high risk accounts. Let Zen Payments start helping you get set up with a bank account for your business today!

How Does An Instant Approval Merchant Account Work?

In order to evaluate applications more efficiently, the high-risk merchant account approval process skips a human step and is done through programmatic filters. For example, your merchant application has many details about your type of business, website, and payment history. The automated tool evaluates this information instantly and provides a predetermined outcome based on your data.

Your merchant account will still be reviewed at a higher level but after the approval process. The goal for your payment provider is to get you credit card processing capabilities as soon as possible. Accordingly, an underwriting team will eventually double check all of the information you provided to ensure it matches with your business details. Be upfront and honest about your business information from the start or you may experience interruptions in your transaction processing and cash flow when your business information is reviewed by our underwriters found to be inaccurate.

What Types Of Merchant Accounts Are Instantly Approved?

There are multiple types of merchant accounts that qualify for instant approval, even when working with a high-risk processor. If you meet all of the application requirements, then companies in a high-risk category can get approved. These high-risk businesses can include online casinos, web design businesses, accounting and others listed above.

Automatic Approval For Online Merchant Accounts

If your company solely processes online payments, then you're eligible for an automatically approved merchant account. The standards for online businesses and physical retail stores are a bit different when it comes to creating merchant accounts. For one, your address and place of business don't always have to be the same location. In turn, many international companies seek out automatic approvals for online businesses.

As mentioned before, a fast approval doesn't necessarily mean a permanent merchant account. For example, if you share false information on your application and your bank finds out that your name, ownership, location, or industry is incorrect, they can cancel your contract immediately and leave you without the ability to accept payments.

No Credit Check Merchant Account

Beyond international merchants, a common reason merchants look for instant approvals is that they don't want their credit checked. If you applied for a merchant account in the past and got declined because of your credit score, then being approved automatically can help you get up and running fast. However, the standards for the merchant account haven't changed just because the approval time decreased.

Getting an instant merchant account with no credit check is rare. Checking your credit history is still part of our application process, but it can be evaluated more rapidly and Zen Payments is less selective than other payment processors when it comes to credit score. High-risk merchant account providers take into consideration merchants with bad credit to understand how much risk is involved for them. Consequently, you will need to find a payment solution such as Zen Payments that will work with you to get your account running regardless of whether you have a poor credit score.

Why Choose Zen Payments as Your High-Risk Payment Processing Company?

Not every business we work with will qualify for an instant approval, but we make the approval process simple and worry-free. When you work with us, you won't need to stress about making it through the underwriting process.

We have one of the highest approval rates in the industry and can work with many different business models. Our extensive network of over 15 banks and high-risk processors enables us to have a 98% approval rate on average. Even if the business owner's credit score is low, we'd love to chat! In fact, we often work with people who have credit scores as low as 500.

We also pride ourselves on our competitive rates, offering the lowest rates you'll find in a high-risk processing company. Many high-risk merchant account providers overcharge for payment processing solutions. At Zen Payments, your financial success means everything to us, so we will never overcharge for our payment processing services. We are dedicated to keeping our prices low and your costs down.

Along with setting you up with a merchant account we offer a plethora of payment solutions. Zen provides both online and point of sale payment gateways so that your customers can pay at both your brick and mortar business and make mobile payments securely over the internet. Our payment terminals accept payment cards (debit cards or credit cards) from MasterCard, Discover, and American Express. You can also apply to accept pin-debit, fuel cards, EBT, e-check, and gift cards. Additionally, with our software you can set up automated billing and invoices.

Zen Payments utilizes cutting edge technology to keep your money and that of your customers safe. Our card readers and virtual terminals follow PCI DSS (the payment card industry data security standard) to mitigate credit card fraud, shield cardholder data, and protect your revenue. We use state-of-the-art encryption technology for secure payment and fee processing. Whether you're taking payments from customers or managing payroll Zen Payments' merchant account solution will process transactions securely.

Zen Payments also offers services designed for risk management. As a high risk merchant your business is at a higher risk of chargebacks and fraud. To prevent this Zen Payments merchant account solutions includes services to mitigate chargebacks and fraud.

Instead of flat rate pricing that other merchant account services charge we use interchange-plus pricing. Using this model provides you with greater transparency and potentially savings. You're able to see exactly what the fees are you're being charged by the credit card companies as well as our markup for the services we provide.

Our customer service representatives are some of the best in the business. Our reps are dedicated to giving you a superior account management customer experience as they help with the onboarding of your high risk processing business. You can reach out to customer support 24/7 for help with your in-person and online payment processing or to provide us with feedback on how to improve our services.

If you're looking for high-risk merchant services, including a high-risk merchant account that can process credit card payments, Zen Payments is the best partner for you!