Adult Industry Credit Card Merchant Processing

Merchant Accounts for Adult services businesses

If you are a merchant looking for a processing account for your adult services business you will soon discover, if you have not already, that traditional low risk merchant processors will not accept you as a client. The reason for this is the real or perceived risk associated with your business type.

That said, you will need you need to work with a bank that understands your business type and in fact wants your business. What is meant by "understanding" your business is closely related to the bank being able to manage and work within the guidelines of pre-set charge back tolerances and possible losses associated with that risk.

A charge back is when a merchant's customer contacts the bank that issued the credit card and complains that they were charged typically for service that they did not receive and or the service was not what was promised.

Bank card transactions can be charged back from 1 day after the transaction and up to 6 months. Even when working with a bank who understands the adult merchant processing space they would rather work with merchants who understand the space. Knowledge of the industry and how to mitigate the risk of charge-backs is viewed as a benefit to the processor.

In many cases whether a merchant is new or has an existing account and is looking for a new merchant processing account a processor will require a reserve.

A reserve (against charge backs) is also known as a rolling reserve. When a merchant has a "Rolling Reserve" he or she authorizes the bank to debit from daily transaction settlement proceeds (batches) the specified percentage of their gross bankcard sale volume (MasterCard, Visa, and Discover Network) and have it deposited into the Reserve Account. Generally the reserve is between 10%.-20% of gross bankcard volume.

In most cases, the Merchant will be required to accumulate a minimum Rolling Reserve deposit based on the specified percentage of its daily transaction settlement proceeds for a period of not less than six (6) complete months (the "Rolling Reserve Holding Period"), although the amount of deposit and length of time funds will be held may be modified at the reasonable discretion of the processor and the bank.

After the Rolling Reserve Holding Period has ended, the funds will be released to the Merchant each month on a "first in/first out" rolling release basis. (In the case of a six-month Rolling Reserve Holding Period, the first partial month of processing will not be included as part of the Rolling Reserve Holding Period. Instead, the first complete month after processing has begun will be considered the first month in the Rolling Reserve Holding Period. In other words, the first possible reserve release would occur in the first month after six complete months of capturing reserve funds.) This procedure will be followed during the term of the Agreement, unless otherwise waived or amended by the processor and the bank.

What does Merchant High Risk Processing (MHRP) Provide?

MHRP is a payment service provider. We provide your business with a merchant processing account. Our processing bank partners will review the opportunity to provide you an account prior to you sending in documents, filling out an application or collecting underwriting documents.

Our proprietary underwriting pre-check form allows our underwriting bank partners to do an upfront review your account. Once reviewed and only after the underwriters have established interest, we will forward you a copy of the merchant application. At that time we will provide a detailed list of the underwriting documents that you must provide in order to establish your merchant processing account.

Rates adult Merchants can anticipate paying credit card processing accounts?

There is no fixed fee that all adult merchants pay. Each merchant's cost is determined by the risk associated with his or her financials, personal and or professional credit worthiness. Adult merchants with high monthly sales ($250,000 per month) will generally pay less than a merchant with low volume. The thought process here is that merchants with a higher volume can afford to offset the risks of chargeback with the reserve and is likely more established than the smaller volume merchant.

What is the usual timeframe from when I submit my merchant account application to actually receiving a merchant account approval?

MHRP will typically receives an answer from one of its' High Risk underwriting banks in 24 hours of submitting the underwriting pre-check form. Upon receiving pre-approval notification we will send you a merchant application which you must sign and return with all required underwriting documents requested. Your account can be live in as little as 3-5 business days from that point sometimes faster.

To get your processing account click here.

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High Risk Specialists

Our banks and processors specialize in high-risk. Experience in providing in the adult high-risk merchant processing industry means that not only will we set your account up quickly but, we will also set you up with the proper payment solution that takes into consideration reporting, customer service, shopping carts set up and other important payment processing services like making sure that your shopping cart meets the Payment Application data security standard(PA-DSS). Not meeting this standard means your customer's information can be hacked and merchants could receive massive fines and be restricted from having a merchant processing account.

Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards (DSS)

Visa Master Card American Express Discovery

Credit Card Debit Cards ACH Electronic Checks