How it works

Application to live processing.

Five steps. The parts that usually go wrong in this industry — a document list that arrives in dribs, terms you see after signing, a decision made by someone you never meet — are the parts this process is built around.

Step One
Apply
Tell us what you sell, how you sell it, and what you process now.
Nothing sensitive at this stage — no documents, no bank details. Enough for us to tell you honestly whether your category fits our standard acquiring program, sits with a specialist acquirer, or has no route today. You hear which on the first call, before you spend time on paperwork.
- Vertical and product
- Monthly volume, current and forecast
- Current processor, if any
Step Two
Underwrite
Our acquiring partner reviews the file. We prepare it and walk it through.
The document list is fixed per vertical and arrives in one message rather than a trickle. We assemble the file and present it to the acquiring partner that writes your category, so the person asking you for a certificate of analysis is the person who knows why the bank wants it. Most delays in this industry are one more item requested every second day; the list you get on day one is the whole list.
- Application and ownership detail
- Three to six months of statements
- Vertical-specific compliance documents
Step Three
Approve
Rate, reserve, caps and funding — in writing.
You see the discount rate, per-transaction fee, monthly and per-transaction caps, reserve rate and term, funding schedule, and the conditions under which any of them can change. All of it before signature. If a processor will not put those in front of you, that is your answer about them.
- A decision
Step Four
Integrate
Hosted checkout, a plugin, or the API.
Most merchants go live with hosted checkout or a cart plugin without writing code. If you have engineers, the API and webhooks are documented and the sandbox is yours as long as you need it. Descriptors, fraud rules and dispute alerts are configured with you, not left as defaults.
- Technical contact
- Bank account for settlement
Step Five
Live
Processing, with a dashboard and a named person.
Transactions, settlements, reserves and disputes in one dashboard. The person who underwrote your file is the person you call when a batch looks wrong. We stay close through the first settlements because that is when reconciliation problems actually surface.
- Nothing further

Your terms, in writing

What you see before you sign.

Six commercial terms — the acquiring bank's — issued as one sheet before signature and visible in your dashboard afterwards. Every value is set at underwriting; none is published here, and the sheet is the artifact you will actually receive.

Discount rateInterchange plus our platform markup, disclosed as separate lines.: Set at underwriting
Per-transaction feeA flat amount per authorization. Its weight depends on your average ticket.: Set at underwriting
Monthly and per-transaction capsSet against your real forecast, and reviewed as you grow.: Set at underwriting
Reserve rate and termThe percentage held and how long it ages before release, month by month.: Set at underwriting
Funding scheduleWhen settled funds reach your account, stated per program.: Set at underwriting
Conditions for changeWhat can move any line above, and how much notice you get.: Set at underwriting

Issued as one sheet before signature. Nothing appears on a statement that was not on it.

Terms · issued before signature

Sample

Meridian Botanicals LLC

CBD program · MCC 5499

Approved

Discount rate: Set at underwriting
Per-transaction fee: Set at underwriting
Monthly and per-transaction caps: Set at underwriting
Reserve rate and term: Set at underwriting
Funding schedule: Set at underwriting
Conditions for change: Set at underwriting

Every line is set per merchant at underwriting and shown in full before you sign.

Illustrative · figures are fictional, not a quote

Go deeper

The three mechanics that decide what processing actually costs you.

Reserves, underwriting and chargeback ratio. Documented in public, before you are a customer, because they are the things merchants get caught out by most often.

What underwriting asks for

The document list, why each item is on it, and what we are actually checking when we read it.

Rolling reserves, explained

What a reserve is, what it does to funding month by month, and when you get it back — with a worked example.

Chargebacks and ratio

Monitoring thresholds, what happens if you breach one, and the three levers in the order they are worth pulling.

Straight answers

Before you ask.

Why is there no timeline on this page?

Because it varies by vertical and by how complete your file is when it arrives, and a single number across all of them would be a marketing figure. On the first call you get the realistic range for your specific category and what in your file is likely to be the long pole.

What slows an application down?

Almost always documents. A file that arrives complete moves at the bank's pace; a file that arrives in pieces moves at the pace of whoever is chasing the missing item. That is why the whole list goes out at step two rather than one item at a time.

What if you cannot take us?

You hear it at step one, before you have spent time on documents. If our standard acquiring program does not write your category we will say whether a specialist acquirer does — and if the honest answer is that nobody does right now, that is worth more to you than an application that dies in three weeks.

Tell us what you sell.

Before anything sensitive changes hands, we will tell you whether one of our acquiring partners writes your vertical, roughly what the terms look like, and what underwriting will ask you for.

Get approved Ask a question or call (347) 594-9686

Application to live processing.

Apply

Underwrite

Approve

Integrate

Live