Merchant business risk and mitigation program

The Business Risk and Mitigation program is designed to educate you on illegal transactions and how they can affect your business.

Types of illegal or brand-damaging transactions include:

• Transactions relating to child pornography, bestiality or other extreme sexual content
• Transactions that involve non-consensual and violent sexual conduct
• Transactions relating to counterfeit and copyright infringing merchandise
• Transactions that breach local and/or international laws including, but not limited to, the online sale of tobacco, prescription pharmaceuticals and gambling

If you have been found to have processed illegal transactions, there are a number of consequences which may apply to you, such as:

• The Card Schemes such as Visa and MasterCard may impose significant fines
• The Bank may terminate your merchant facility
• Your business may be listed on a Credit Card Scheme Database preventing you from operating a merchant facility in any future business

You can follow a few simple steps to safeguard your business including:

• Only process transactions for your own business
• Do not accept or process any transactions for another person or business
• If you run a website, do not allow another website operator to link to your site so their transactions are processed through your site