Legal, Privacy & Compliance

Acceptable Use Policy

This policy forms part of the Merchant Agreement and applies from the moment an application is submitted. It exists because a gateway that boards the categories we board is only as safe as its worst merchant, and because an acquirer will ask to see it before they ask anything else.

1. Categories we board

Stated as merchant category codes, because that is how the question is actually asked.

• 5967 — adult and creator subscriptions
• 7273 — dating and companionship
• 5122 — nutraceuticals and supplements
• 7995 — gaming and skill wagering, where licensed in every jurisdiction served

Anything outside these is a conversation, not a decline. Tell us what you sell.

2. Categories we never board

No discretion, no exceptions, and no clause below softens this list.

• Child sexual abuse material, or any depiction of a minor in a sexual context
• Content produced without the documented, informed consent of every person appearing in it, including content obtained deceptively or republished without right
• Human trafficking, coerced sex work, or any service where consent cannot be established
• Illegal drugs and their precursors; prescription medicines sold without a prescription
• Weapons, ammunition, and their components
• Unlicensed gambling, or gambling offered into a jurisdiction where it is prohibited
• Sanctioned individuals, entities and jurisdictions
• Anything requiring a licence, registration or classification the merchant does not hold

A merchant found selling any of the above is terminated immediately, funds are held, and the termination is reported where scheme rules require it.

3. Additional conditions for adult and creator merchants

• Age and identity verification for every performer, documented before publication and retained for the life of the content plus retention period to confirm.
• Documented consent for every piece of content, covering the distribution channels it actually appears on.
• A working takedown process with a published contact, and removal within SLA to confirm of a valid request — including a request from a person appearing in the content.
• A moderation policy for user-generated or user-uploaded material, applied before publication.
• Age assurance for buyers consistent with the Online Safety Act 2021 and the eSafety Commissioner’s expectations in Australia, and with equivalent obligations wherever else you sell.
• Where your audience makes it relevant, record-keeping equivalent to 18 U.S.C. §2257.

4. Conditions that keep disputes down

These are scheme requirements as much as ours, and they are the difference between a 0.6% ratio and a monitoring programme.

• A billing descriptor a cardholder will recognise, carrying a phone number or URL that reaches you.
• A refund policy published where the buyer sees it before they pay, and honoured.
• Cancellation that works, in the same number of steps it took to subscribe.
• Clear disclosure of rebill amount and interval before the first charge — the interval stated in plain language, not only as P1M.
• A support address that answers within one business day.
• No negative-option continuity, no forced upsell, and no trial that rebills at a materially different price without saying so.

5. What happens when this is breached

In tiers, because most breaches are fixable and terminating a merchant is expensive for both of us.

1. Remediation plan. Written, dated, with a named contact on both sides. Most descriptor and refund-policy problems end here.
2. Reserve increase or settlement hold, where exposure has grown faster than the plan is closing it.
3. Suspension. New transactions stop; existing subscriptions are handled according to the Merchant Agreement.
4. Termination, with funds held for the reserve period and, where scheme rules require it, a MATCH report — preceded by written notice of what we intend to report.

Section 2 skips straight to step 4.