What Do You Need to Apply?

Before we get too far ahead, you should first understand that you will need a couple of different things to apply for a merchant account. Here are the things you will need if you want to apply:

• Three months of your recent bank statements.
• Your driver's license or passport.
• A secured and operational website.
• Your social security number.
• The chargeback ratio is below two percent.
• Three months of your most recent chargeback statements.

If you want to get approved for an account, the best way that you can do that is through having a legal and responsible business. We always want to work with people and do what we can to help them, but we evaluate the business model to make sure that it has been built on solid ground.

Why Do People Go through Us?

You have a couple of different reasons that people choose the Southern Institute over the competition. For example, we provide a service for high-risk merchant accounts who can sometimes have a hard time finding processing that will fit for their unique needs. When you go through us, you can trust that we will include competitive pricing as well as a chargeback solution.

People like going through our company because we spend real time trying to understand your unique individual needs. In addition, we will design a custom solution built to keep your business up and running. People come to us when everyone else has rejected their application. They go through us because we want to work with merchants, and we want to increase their chances for approval. In fact, at the Southern Institute, you can get approval on the same day even with high risk. We have provided the backbone for many business owners, and people like going through us because of how we were set up to help customers right from the beginning.

Some of the reasons that people choose us include:

• Competitive pricing
• High rate of approval
• Top-notch customer care
• Expert underwriting

We will work with you to create a custom solution for your unique business needs. You also want approval without restrictions, and while another company might approve you for going through them, they might add a bunch of limitations that make it hard for you to do your job. We will do our best to give you as much freedom as humanly possible. For example, we have set ourselves up with higher processing volume caps and a lower rolling reserve.

Processing Volume: What Does It Mean?

You want a payment processing company that will meet all your volume needs because once you hit a certain number of credit card transactions, you can't go any further for the month. That limitation can stifle and suffocate businesses that need to have this open. You don't want to be limited in how much you can buy because of payment processing. Especially when you rely on credit card payments, this can take a business downhill fast. As a timeshare merchant account, you need to have a higher processing volume, and especially if you're a growing business, you want to have the option to expand on the cap. To expand your volume, what we normally require includes:

• Low chargeback ratios
• Paying the bills on time
• Having some extra savings on hand

Why Do Merchants Get Hit with So Many Chargebacks

We specialize in high-risk merchant accounts, and we have seen how merchants often get hit with a large number of chargebacks. This happens for a variety of reasons. First, it happens because of high-average ticket prices. Second, it happens because of how many of the services related to timeshares will cost at least a few hundred dollars, and it can easily go much higher that. Travel merchants are considered high risk because of how customers will often prepay for tickets, arrangements and tours. Another danger comes from how so many travel businesses wind up failing. When this happens, the business will shut down, and they don't refund the cost to the people. The burden falls on the processor and their banks. This leads to a risk of a high cost of chargebacks to the processors. To keep from risking your account, you want to do whatever you can to avoid chargebacks.

The Complete Solution for Your Payment Processing Needs

You have several needs that must be met with payment processing. First, you want a company that offers fast approval because you want to get your business up and running as soon as possible. Here at the Southern Institute, we can help you to make it happen. We also have dedicated customer support for when the need arises, and we allow for easy integration. One of the things that have helped us to prosper in high-risk merchant accounts has been how we genuinely try to help our customers. We even work in some of the challenging industries, and where other people said, "No," we will say, "Yes."

Trained Staff Ready to Assist

We have a team of trained and professional individuals who are prepared to assist you as needed. It is our goal to always provide customers with assistance. We can help you to determine the best payment choices for your business. Regardless of whether you have been shut down in the past or not, we have the right knowledge to help you. With every business, we want to help you to resolve your business needs. Our goal is to exhaust every opportunity that we have available. You will use our expertise as well as our competence to deliver solid and unforgettable services.

Keep Your Payment Secured

One of the big concerns with any form of using your credit card becomes about security and keeping everything under control. We're a leading US financial services provider, and we specialize in helping customers in the high-risk areas. With every high-risk applicant, we will carefully tailor our services to match up with your needs and benefit you the most.

Why Do Some Merchants Get Rejected

You have a few different reasons that merchants get rejected, but not being able to accept credit cards can torpedo your business. Because of the fickle nature of travel and how many financial institutions act lazily toward approval, getting a merchant account can sometimes be difficult. Because travelers often buy things with much time in advance, it gives them a lot of time to think and ruminate on things. This can be bad because of how it leads to them canceling their purchases, and in fact, this is much higher than what you have in many of the other industries. Along with the higher rate of chargebacks, many times these travel agencies have to deal with international clients, and they don't always have the same protections as in the United States. This can make bankers antsy about approving merchant accounts. Here at the Southern Institution, we have set it up so that you can complete the application process quickly and easily. Not to mention, we normally respond to your application within 48 hours so that you can keep your business in flow.

Calculating Your Chargeback Rate and Keeping It Low

If you want to calculate the number of chargebacks, you have to look at the number of transactions that were made divided by the number of monthly chargebacks. To give you a clear example, let's say that you had six chargebacks in a month where you had 100 transactions. That means that you had a chargeback ratio of six percent, and you want to keep your chargeback ratio as low as possible. The financial constitutions don't care about the amount of money involved in a chargeback. What they care about is the chargeback ratio, and if you have a higher chargeback ratio, you're at great risk of getting terminated. That's because your level of risk is based on this information.

Design a Clear Refund and Cancelation Policy

You want to keep transaction disputes from turning into chargebacks, and one of the ways that you do this comes from outlining your refund and cancellation policy clearly. Merchants should keep detailed documentation and emails between the customer and the merchant can help to prove the IP while lowering the risk of a chargeback. You want to outline your refund policies clearly, and you also want to make sure that everyone understands what is going on with it. Some of the most pertinent details to keep track of include the merchant business name, contact information, cancellation terms, refund policy, total purchase amount and recurring billing information if it is needed.

In addition, if you can provide your customers with solid customer support that truly resolves their issues when they come to speak with you, you can lower the amount of dissatisfaction. Here's a rule of thumb that we always tell our merchants: It costs less for you to refund a disgruntled customer than what it does to do a chargeback for them. In this way, you only lose one sale. However, if your chargeback ratio goes above two percent, it could lead to termination, and this will ultimately equate to you losing your travel merchant account. How much will that cost you when your customers can't pay with credit cards? In many cases, they will simply look at the competition.

Do Whatever You Can to Prevent Chargebacks

If you had a chargeback ratio of six percent, you could have your account terminated. Most processors will terminate you for anything above two percent, which means that you have to do whatever you can to prevent chargebacks from happening. Here at the Southern Institute, we do our best to protect you from chargebacks, and we even provide you with chargeback protection. We even utilize a chargeback prevention feature. The ultimate goal behind this is to give you prevention tools that will allow you to create rules and keep your configuration settings up to date. With a lower chargeback rate, you can accept more transactions, and this will ultimately mean more cash in your pockets.

Going with the Best

We will happily listen to any concerns that you might have, and we will do our best to address them. As a company, we look forward to working with you, and after you have filled out your application, we will listen to any concerns you may have, and we will work to resolve them. One of the things that have made us the best in the industry comes from the fact that we have been doing business for over 20 years. With that kind of veteran experience, you can trust that you won't simply be working with any old payment processing company. In fact, the Southern Institute is one of the best companies in the business.

Once you have given us a call, we will look at your unique situation and figure out how to best proceed. We have helped thousands of high-risk merchants, and we're proud to serve and meet your business needs. At the same time, merchant love going through us because we have helped them to lower their operating costs and make it less expensive. We provide custom solutions for those high-risk scenarios.

Keep Your Business in Smooth Operation

You don't have to lose as much money to an expensive transaction like with Paypal. We are an easier, more efficient and more cost-effective choice than much of the competition. We will help you to keep your business running, and we will do what we can to lower the risk that chargebacks pose to you.

Difficulty Choosing a Merchants Provider

Travel agencies face a lot of risks, and they can have a hard time choosing a merchants provider because of how difficult it can be to get accepted when you are in a high-risk business. Here at the Southern Institute, we specialize in providing our customers with solid services that they can trust. Whenever everyone else rejects your application, we will be the one company that stands out from the herd and says, "Yes!" Not to mention, you get incredible and competitive rates when you go through us. We set our business up so that everyone can benefit from it.