When Stripe says no and aggregators terminate without warning.
Direct merchant accounts placed with banks that openly serve high-risk verticals, with chargeback defense built for the realities of high-volume disputes.
High-risk doesn't mean shady. It means your industry has higher chargebacks, regulatory scrutiny, or a vertical that aggregators like Stripe and Square classify out of policy. Visa's monitoring program flags merchants at a 1% chargeback ratio for two consecutive months, and most processors terminate above 2%. The MATCH list (the file formerly known as TMF) flags merchants terminated for cause and follows you to every bank that runs underwriting. We place you directly with acquirers that openly serve your vertical and run dispute representment to keep your ratio in safe territory.
On April 1, 2026, Visa's Excessive merchant threshold dropped from 2.2% to 1.5%. Above 1.5% triggers $8/transaction fees on disputes and fraud. Acquirers get tagged Above Standard at 0.5% portfolio ratio and Excessive at 0.7%, which means our incentives are aligned with yours: we don't want you above 0.6%.
MATCH (Member Alert to Control High-Risk Merchants), formerly TMF, is Mastercard's database of merchants terminated for cause. Once listed, every acquirer's underwriting team sees the flag. Reasons include excessive chargebacks, fraud, identity theft, and bankruptcy. Listing lasts five years. We can pull a check during onboarding so you know your status before applying.
High-risk pricing typically runs 2.5%-5% effective rate plus a per-transaction fee, with rolling reserves of 5-10%. Lower than what most aggregators quietly charge once you're already on board, higher than low-risk retail. We give you interchange-plus pricing with the markup spelled out on every statement.