Obtaining a Payment Processing License

[jryan54]

Hey Folks,

I was wondering if anyone would have insight into the easiest jurisdiction to get a payment processing (or PSP) license?

Cheers

 

[diablo]

It's a very complicated process. You may look into Official PCI Security Standards Council Site - Verify PCI Compliance, Download Data Security and Credit Card Security Standards to get started!

 

[superman]

If you really mean PSP there is in most jurisdiction no license involved or did you mean to be a acquirer?

to be a PSP you need:
anully onsite assessment trough approved QSA and quarterly network scan trough ASV.
contract with acquirer (mostly multiple to be able to cover many kind of customer business)
processing gateway (if self developed high qsa cost involved or existing certified software which is mostly not cheap)
as long you process below 300k transactions you don't need onsite assement but I don't know any acquirer that is willing to deal

regarding acquiring there is little more involved, and depends on what you exactly want to do, process payments for 3rd party, or process in name of 3rd party, and in which countries (USA too or not) and and and...
jurisdiction with benefits for european business: romania, czech republic and switzerland

 

[negon]

There is not always a license required. Some countries will allow you to run this services without license.

 

[Emily Rimlins]

The "easiest", fastest and most cost efficient jurisdiction is Georgia if you wish to be licensed! You need to find a Lawyer there though, don't trust other Lawyers who claim to know the laws...

Hope this helps!

Em

 

[JohnLocke]

beside the company and licensing there is a whole lot more in it to be a payment processor. I assume you already know that!

 

[Emily Rimlins]

beside the company and licensing there is a whole lot more in it to be a payment processor. I assume you already know that!

For sure, Admin! But in most cases you can simply white label and take the small increase in rates you can provide in order to get "into" the system and learn it. From there (I assume), it gets easier

 

[Okanda Fernando]

license is not a must

 

[jryan54]

i had a big reply typed out and for some reason my phone decided to drop it lol!

Thank you everyone for the responses and I apologise for the dealy in replying. I've been in China at a conference and had forgotten to load a VPN on my phone and was locked out of a bunch of sites/internet.

To be a little clearer, I was more looking at the aggregation role rather than acquiring. There is a hole in the market for many high risk merchants such as FX providers (an industry I work in) and I have been investigating what's involved in both the payment gateway and aggregation processing side of the business. Obviously, I'm a relative newbie at this and i'm simply gathering ideas at this stage but I do have a firm understanding of risk management/banking management as well as payment processing, from the client side, to rely upon.

Accessing a white label solution makes sense initially BUT is likely to problematic due to the mix of clients I could potentially attract from an AML and risk perspective. So it's definitely going to be a fine line with balancing the risk profiles of who we take on whilst developing a client book.

Anyway, thank you for all of your input and I may pop back here periodically with some further questions given that i'm still at the initial stages of research mode!

 

[JohnK]

Accessing a white label solution makes sense initially BUT is likely to problematic due to the mix of clients I could potentially attract from an AML and risk perspective. So it's definitely going to be a fine line with balancing the risk profiles of who we take on whilst developing a client book.

you need to have staff in place in order to run such a business! It's complicated and really expensive to get started! Whitelabel is a great start but still it will require you to know something about this business.