What is the difference between a Direct and a Sponsored Merchant Account?

Due to Visa and Mastercard compliance issues regarding Location of Merchant and Type of Business, MultiCards offers two different account types:

Direct Merchant Account

Sole traders and registered businesses in the following countries, and meeting the minimum monthly sales volume of 25,000 USD/month, qualify to be connected directly to our banks in Europe. A direct merchant account also requires monthly fees.
Registered businesses should also have a representative with permanent address in the registered country. Contact our Accounts Department for a Site Review and view the Compliance list.
Commission rate will be determined by MultiCards and will be between 3.0%-3.5% depending on the risk of your account. We can not garantuee approval as this will be determined by the Risk Management Department of the Acquiring bank.
  MasterCard VISA
Andorra
Austria
Belgium
Channel Island covered by U.K.
Cyprus
Czechia
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Gibraltar
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Ireland
Isle of man covered by U.K.
Israel  
Italy
New (EEC)countries may be added as soon as we have bank arrangements in place or countries are part of the EEC.
  
  MasterCard VISA
Latvia
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Monaco
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
San Marino
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Turkey
Vatican City
United Kingdom
Merchants that wish to apply for a direct merchant account have to send:
  • Passport copy of the director/owner
  • Utility bill (water, gas or telephone) with proof of permanent address
  • Copy of Certificate of incorporation in E.U. country (for registered businesses)
  • Sole trader statement (for sole traders)
The following characteristics apply to this account type:
  • Host the order page on your own server.
  • Optionally you may use the MultiCards Gateway Script Order Interface
  • Your Business Name will appear on customer's credit card statement

Sponsored Merchant Account

The business model of aggregators, companies processing charges for other Merchants, is not allowed.
Sponsored Merchant Accounts accept credit card orders from your customers through one of our Sales Agents. Businesses from almost all countries in the world are accepted as Sponsored Merchant and there is no minimum monthly sales requirement.
The following characteristics apply to this account type
  • Order page can only be hosted on the Sales Agents server
  • Certain type of business is excluded, please ask our support staff
  • Customers don't see your name on their credit card statement