How it works
What underwriting asks for, and why.
Underwriting is one person deciding whether an acquiring bank should take on your chargeback liability. Everything they ask for is evidence toward that decision, and nothing on the list is bureaucracy for its own sake.
The practical consequence: a complete file moves at the acquirer’s pace and an incomplete one moves at the pace of whoever is chasing the missing item. Assemble the whole list before you apply anywhere — it does not get shorter by waiting.
What to gather
The business
- Completed merchant application
- Legal entity, trading names, ownership over 25%, MCC, and the descriptor you want on statements. The descriptor field is the one merchants skip and then regret.
- Articles of incorporation or formation
- Confirms the entity signing the agreement is the entity that exists. Mismatches between the applicant name and the registered name are a common cause of delay.
- EIN confirmation
- Ties the entity to its tax identity. A reviewer checks this against the application and the bank account name.
- Government ID for each beneficial owner
- Know-your-customer obligation on the acquirer, not a formality. Owners at or above the ownership threshold all need one.
What to gather
The money
- Three to six months of processing statements
- The single most useful document you can supply. It shows volume, average ticket, refund rate and chargeback ratio in a form the reviewer already knows how to read.
- Three months of business bank statements
- Cash position and whether deposits reconcile to the processing statements. Large unexplained gaps between the two invite questions.
- Voided cheque or bank letter
- Where settlement lands. The account name has to match the entity name — a personal account for a company MID is a decline.
- Financial statements, if volume warrants
- Requested for larger files and future-delivery verticals, where the acquirer is exposed to your solvency rather than only to your disputes.
What to gather
The offer
- Live website URLs, including checkout
- A reviewer will go through your funnel as a customer. Everything they see is part of the file, including pages you did not submit.
- Terms of sale, refund and cancellation policy
- Checked against what the checkout actually does. A stated 30-day refund policy and a no-refunds checkout is worse than either alone.
- Fulfilment and delivery detail
- How long between charge and delivery, and how delivery is evidenced. This drives reserve terms more than almost anything else.
- Vertical-specific compliance documents
- Licences, registrations, lab certificates, bonds. The list per vertical is on that vertical's industry page.
On the other side of the desk
What a reviewer is actually checking.
Does the entity exist and match itself
Application name, incorporation documents, EIN and bank account all naming the same entity. This sounds trivial and is the most common source of avoidable delay.
Does the money story hold together
Processing statements, bank deposits and stated volume telling the same story. Reviewers are not looking for perfection here, they are looking for consistency.
Does the site match the application
Products, prices, billing model, refund policy and descriptor as they actually appear to a customer — not as described in the application.
Is there anything on the MATCH list
A previous termination shows, and the reason code matters. Disclosing it up front with an explanation is workable; being discovered is not.
What is the real dispute exposure
Delivery window, billing model, ticket size and current ratio, combined. This is what sets reserve rate and term.
Questions
The awkward ones.
Vertical-specific document lists are on each industry page. Reserve mechanics are explained in full on rolling reserves.
Send us the file.
If you have processing statements and a live site, that is enough to tell you where you stand. The rest of the list can follow.