Before Signing Up

Before Signing Up with Helcim

High Risk, Restricted and Prohibited Merchants or Activities

Helcim is dedicated to helping small and medium sized businesses grow and thrive through our low and transparent processing fees, and robust free software tools that help take the guesswork out of collecting payments for your goods and services. That said, there are a number of legal and industry obligations we’re required to abide by, which are designed to help financial services organizations like Helcim protect their merchants, consumers, and the financial system as a whole. This means we’re not able to work with some businesses. The following gives a bit more context about why some businesses are not eligible to use the Helcim services.

Our Partners and Regulators

Helcim works with a number of partners and industry participants to deliver our services, including bank partners (such as our acquiring bank), and the card brands (such as Visa and Mastercard). These partners are subject to various laws and regulations, as well as their own internal policies and controls designed to mitigate risk to themselves and the financial system at large. In order to benefit from working with these partners, Helcim must in turn adhere to certain legal, regulatory and policy requirements that may limit our ability to work with certain industries.

Helcim is also directly subject to certain laws, regulations and policies such as anti-money laundering and anti-terrorist financing laws, and industry best practices designed to protect consumers and combat various kinds of fraud and business risks. For example, Helcim is subject to the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act and its regulations, which are monitored and enforced in Canada by FINTRAC, and the Bank Safety Act and associated guidance published by FinCEN in the United States.

Restricted and High Risk Businesses

Helcim is unable to support certain restricted businesses, as outlined in our Acceptable Use Policy. There are also certain high-risk indicators that may subject your application to greater scrutiny (meaning our team will reach out to you for more information or documentation, and may reach out to your business community or customers), and may ultimately result in a denied application to use the Helcim services. Some of these indicators include:

• Processing large transaction amounts or volumes

• Industries prone to larger volumes of chargebacks or fraud abuses

• Advanced sales or delayed delivery of goods prone to greater likelihood of disputes, refunds and reselling

• Newer businesses that lack an established financial history and reputation

• Goods sold that lack standardization, replicability or measurability

• Time and material dependencies; businesses prone to supply-chain risks

Risk Mitigation Measures

You might be able to address some high-risk indicators by implementing various business controls that will offer greater comfort to Helcim that your business is aware of potential risks and actively working to mitigate those risks. Examples of such controls include:

• Implementing a fraud prevention system

• Operating a supply chain and vendor due diligence system that includes redundancies

• Publishing a clear and transparent refund and exchange policy

• Encourage your satisfied or happy repeat customers to leave reviews in public forums