A gold and precious metals merchant account is necessary for your payment processing needs.
When it comes to precious metals, they are considered highly valuable because they are rare to find. Each year, only a minimum amount is produced and therefore their scarcity is the reason for such a high value.
One of the most popular metals in the world is gold. It can be used for industrial and financial purposes. Investors the world over possess gold instead of having other investment assets since gold is considered to be money. In fact, precious metals are considered “the oldest form of money in the world.”
If investors begin to doubt the value of paper currency, gold and other precious metals have historically retained their value. During times of economic uncertainty, gold and other precious metals are a “store of wealth”.
If you would like to join the highly profitable, gold and precious metals industry, you will need a gold and precious metals merchant account.
Opening Up A Gold And Precious Metal Merchant Account
Since you will be considered a “commodities dealer”, this industry is classified as a high risk business due to its “high ticket sizes”. Furthermore, this industry does experience a lot of fraud from customers and some fraud from the dealers themselves. What also complicates things is that most payments are processed via a payment gateway, which also means there is no interaction with a sales person to verify the identification and signatures. As a result of these potential risks, including chargebacks, getting approval for a regular merchant account will be virtually impossible.
However, you can do a few things to increase your chances of acquiring a gold and precious metal merchant account:
- Prove the legitimacy of your company – This is best accomplished by operating in full compliance of your country’s regulations.
- Show your license or proof of registration with important government bodies if you decide to sell precious metals.
- If these precious metals are being stored, you must provide evidence of secure facilities. This can be in the form of signed agreements with the facility, pictures of the inventory, and close-up pictures of certain items.
When searching for a high risk merchant account provider, make sure that they have had a considerable amount of experience working with this industry. Ensure they are well-acquainted with its regulations. It would also be crucial that the merchant account provider has some type of chargeback assistance and resolution resources. It will also not hurt to investigate whether they would give you the volume capacity to grow your business.
To further build your processing history, consider taking ACH payments for lower risk of payment and chargeback reversals, E-checks, and MOTO payment processing.
Finally, another way to ensure that you will be approved for a gold and precious metal merchant account is to keep your chargeback ratios low and maintain a good reputation for your business.
Closing Thoughts
As a gold and precious metals merchant, you will be automatically categorized as a high risk business. That is why you need to research the best high risk merchant account for your specific needs. Do know that even then, you may experience chargebacks and other fraudulent activity. Therefore, it is critical to make sure that these companies have some sort of resource and platform in place to fight chargebacks.