Payment processing for proprietary trading firms and funded-trader programs. More volume approved, higher limits to scale, and a merchant account that does not freeze or vanish.
Prop firms cannot use Stripe; Stripe's restricted-business policy effectively excludes funded-trader programs, so prop firms run on specialized high-risk processors from day one. The problem is those processors: they cap the volume a growing firm can run, a weak acquiring BIN soft-declines a third of legitimate trader payments, and the account can be frozen or dropped without warning. We place funded-trader platforms (also called funded trader programs and funded trading firms) directly with acquiring banks built to hold the volume.
The funded-trader industry exploded and payment processing did not keep up with it. A prop firm's customers are global, paying card-not-present, at high velocity, and the firm needs to process more, not less, as it grows. Most prop firms end up on a high-risk processor that does the opposite: it caps the monthly limit below what the firm is actually selling, runs an authorization rate in the sixties because the BIN is wrong for the traffic, and carries the risk that the provider freezes the account or collapses entirely, which is what happened to dozens of firms in 2024. A direct merchant account at an acquiring bank that openly underwrites funded-trader programs fixes all three: real volume capacity so the firm can scale, a strong BIN so the same traffic approves in the high nineties, and a bank relationship that does not disappear on a portfolio review.
Most prop firms board on an acquirer that was never configured for their traffic. Funded-trader payments are high-risk, cross-border, and card-not-present, and a mismatched acquiring BIN produces soft declines: the issuer does not recognize the merchant profile, the merchant category code looks off, the cross-border flag trips. The result is an authorization rate in the sixties or seventies. Re-placement on a BIN built for this traffic routinely lifts the rate into the nineties.
The BIN is the acquiring bank's identifier carried on every transaction. A strong BIN for a prop firm is one whose acquirer openly underwrites funded-trader programs, codes the merchant correctly, and has issuer relationships and routing tuned for high-risk cross-border card-not-present volume. Processing the same traffic through a strong BIN instead of a weak one is the difference between a 63% and a 97% authorization rate.
In practice, no. Stripe and PayPal restricted-business policy effectively excludes funded-trader programs, so a prop firm that tries either gets declined at signup or shut down quickly. That is why prop firms run on specialized high-risk processors from the start. The real problem is not getting off Stripe; it is that the high-risk processor a firm ends up on tends to cap its volume, decline too much of its traffic, or fail outright. The fix is a direct merchant account at an acquiring bank.
Yes, at a meaningful rate, when the terms of service clearly disclose the rules and the simulated nature of evaluations and the trader agreed before paying. Representment evidence built around that agreement wins disputes that a firm writing off chargebacks would simply lose, and keeps the dispute ratio under the VAMP threshold.
A rolling reserve is standard for the category. The figure depends on dispute history, time in business, and documentation quality. Clean terms, a low dispute ratio, and a complete packet board at the lower end; a firm arriving off a termination with elevated disputes boards higher. Reserves step down on a review schedule as the account proves out.