Those who have been into high-risk online business niches for several years already know that it was not an easy task to open a merchant account at those times. Dealing with banks, payment gateways, transaction monitoring, etc. – These aspects webmasters had to settle for themselves. The situation was weird and it became obvious that services would appear to bring relief to webmasters sooner or later.
They did appear; offering turnkey solutions to webmasters from all over the world. The only thing a webmaster needed to do now was to sign up with a processor and let the latter do the rest – dealing with the acquiring bank, processing credit cards online, fraud activity monitoring, etc. Seems like it's the way to go, doesn't it?
Unfortunately, Visa and MasterCard rules became stricter and featured additional demands and obligations for processors and merchants along with increasing volumes of online transactions. High-risk industries like online adult, gambling and gaming businesses are those regulated and monitored with extra attention. Problems started appearing for both merchants and online payment processors because they lacked knowledge and failed to comply with what they had to.
The situation described above led to a huge crisis in the online adult industry. Processing services left the business in flocks; often without paying their merchants a single penny from what they owed to them. They've been fined by Visa/MasterCard because they offended the rules and regulations of these companies – either deliberately or not.
The fact is that only a few of the processors intended to go into fraudulent activity trying to steal money from their merchants and cease operations. However, most of the processing companies didn't even know they were offending certain regulations. They never knew about the regulations as a matter of fact. As a result, they have been fined and thrown out of business and only a few managed to pay for their mistakes and stay in the industry.
Before you direct the fire on your rage onto the unprofessional processing companies, let us explain the essence of the problem. The Card Association rules are updated frequently, but the renewed Rule Book is not made available to the online payment processors and merchants. It is only sent to the acquiring banks that usually don't bother revealing this information to the processing companies they are in partnership with. It is obvious that after the latest crisis all processors who managed to survive will try and get the information from the banks as soon as possible, but they rarely practiced this in the past. Lack of information is what caused the adult industry's problems and lack of information is actually the problem to be solved.
Webmasters themselves should also be aware of the rules and conditions under which they and their processing companies operate. Reading piles of documents is not what a webmaster should do – his job is making money, not reading. The need for a digest booklet was obvious. It should help both online payment processing companies and their customers (webmasters) to understand the crucial aspects of the industry and regulating issues that may come up in the process. Webmasters urgently needed a source of information to find out how online payments are being processed so that they could evaluate their processor and choose the one who is able work with their money the way it should be.
To fill this gap, payment service provider StandardPay has published a PDF-book named "MCC 5967: Taking the Mystery Out of the Code" to help all the participants of this risky and strictly regulated business. The document is a result of deep analysis of the Card Association's latest rules and regulations and their possible impact on high-risk online business activities. MCC 5967 is especially important for these niches so its peculiarities are detailed by the authors.
"MCC 5967: Taking the Mystery Out of the Code" covers all aspects that are important for any adult webmaster. Knowing about fines and what leads to them may help to avoid the unwanted losses while the information about the possible ways online processors can cheat their merchants is a nice weapon for a webmaster to protect himself from the fraud. For the processing companies this book may well serve as a comprehensive digest covering the most significant changes in Visa/MasterCard rules and regulations.
"MCC 5967: Taking the Mystery Out of the Code" is available for download at StandardPay.com.