What every merchant should know about required documents
When applying for a merchant account, you’ll be asked to fill out a merchant application. The application is typically standard across most merchant service providers with regard to the information collected on the application.
In addition to the application, you’ll be required to provide support materials as they relate to the business and owners. Required merchant account support documents are as follows:
- Business organization documentation
- Business articles of incorporation
- Or Non-Profit documentation
- Or Sole Trader documentation
- Company Directors’ proof of identity
- Voided business check
- Business or applicant financial documentation
- Previous processing statements
- Or business banking statements
- Or owner(s) personal banking statements
Business organization documentation
Organizational documentation is needed to state where and when the business has been registered and whether is in good standing. The standard documents are: Certificate of Incorporation (also called Extract from the Companies Register), Memorandum and Articles of Association.
In case your company does not have a Memorandum and Articles of Association, you may be asked for any other document that covers the following topics: shares and ownership, voting rights, directors meetings and other company foundation information that may vary depending on the acquirer’s requirements.
Company Directors’ proof of identity
A copy of the company director and all authorized signatories passports (or national identity documents) is necessary to verify whether the information on the application has been recorded accurately and will be used to perform a credit check on all listed applicants.
Voided business check
A copy of a voided business check is required to prove that the account associated to the merchant account has been established. This is the account that the funds received from credit card sales will be deposited into. In some cases merchant may be asked to submit a bank reference letter instead.
Business or Owner financial documentation
Financials are needed to illustrate the financial strength of the business. Typically, if the business has had a merchant account in the past, all that needs to be provided are the most recent processing statements from the previous provider. If the business is new and there’s no banking history associated with it, then a business plan will be required.
Important: if a merchant business is registered in one of the countries where the company original documents cannot be obtained in English or German, the merchant will be asked to provide the sworn translation of these documents. It’s important that all documents are notary certified, and not older than 6 months from the date they will be provided to the acquiring bank in the process of merchant account registration.
This post was written by Hania Sajnaj-Kaczmarek
