Mastercard’s Business Risk Assessment and Mitigation (BRAM) Program and Visa’s Global Brand Protection Program (GBPP) ensure their customers and services do not facilitate any illegal or brand-damaging transactions. Acquiring banks and merchants must comply or face significant fines, regulatory, and legal actions. Examples of such violations include the online sale of illicit drugs, pharmaceuticals, illegal or miscoded gambling, offensive pornography, child exploitation, and more.
For more information on violative categories click here.
After confirmation of the violation, the acquiring bank will be notified by regulators. It is up to the acquiring bank to conduct its own investigation in response to the violation. It is important that acquires respond quickly to the accusation and terminate the merchant account or risk significant fines and legal actions. Fines have been recorded well into the six-figure range per violating transaction.
Acquiring banks must accurately log all merchant MCC codes and ensure that they are not processing payments for any illegal or brand-damaging transactions. Working with a registered Merchant Monitoring Service Provider (MMSP) such as G2 can mitigate fines and help safely grow your business while adhering to Mastercard and Visa’s guidelines.
Contact us for more information.
• For more on BRAM and Mastercard
• For more on GBPP and Visa
• For more on G2 Merchant Monitoring
Improve merchant risk management and compliance with solutions that deliver more actionable risk insights at scale across your business processes. Learn More