Problems › Merchant account terminated
Your acquirer is terminating your merchant account. What to do in the first 72 hours.
TL;DR. The letter means one of three things: a hold (temporary, funds delayed), a reserve change (ongoing, a bigger slice withheld), or a termination (the relationship ends on a date, and your reserve is held for 30 to 180 days, usually the full 180). Get the release schedule in writing today; the reason you will usually not get. Do not sign with an instant-approval provider tomorrow. Start the underwriting file for a real second acquirer now; with a complete file it is weeks, without one it is months.
Who this is for. Merchants processing $100K+ a month who have received a hold, reserve increase, suspension or termination notice from their PSP, acquirer, or an aggregator such as Stripe, PayPal or Shopify Payments. If you are below that, most of this page still applies; the last section is where we can help.
Three different letters. Three different clocks.
Hold
Funds delayed, account open.
Triggered by a spike, a dispute jump, or a verification request. Usually resolved with documents within days. Answer the request completely and fast; a slow answer turns a hold into a review.
Reserve change
Account open, more withheld.
The acquirer is repricing your risk. Ask what triggered it and what brings it back down. If 10% is quoted with no cap and no release schedule, that is the provider's default for your category, not a judgement of you.
Termination
Relationship ends on a date.
Settled funds and the reserve are held for 30 to 180 days after that date, in most cases the full 180. Ask, in writing, for the release schedule and what can be deducted from the reserve. The reason, and any MATCH listing, you will usually not be told.
You never had a merchant account. That is the problem.
Stripe, PayPal, Shopify Payments, Square and similar providers are aggregators: you process under their master account, on their risk model, and they can close you by email with no dialogue and hold the balance for up to 180 days. “Closed for no reason” usually means your category, your chargeback ratio or your growth tripped an automated rule. Appeals succeed rarely and slowly.
The fix is a dedicated merchant account with an acquirer that has underwritten your business knowingly, and a second one behind it. If you are processing $100K+ a month, that is what we do; the first 72 hours below apply to you exactly as they do to anyone else. Below that, the section at the end of this page is for you.
In order. Do not skip to step four.
Day 0
Get it in writing.
Effective date. Reserve amount, release schedule, what can be deducted. Ask for the reason, and expect “risk decision” or “outside our risk appetite” and nothing more; most acquirers will not say, and will not confirm a MATCH listing either. Export every report you can while you still have portal access: settlements, disputes by reason, declines by country.
Day 0
Do not open a “quick” account.
Instant-approval providers board you in hours and underwrite you in month three, when the first chargeback ratio report arrives. That review ends with another hold. A termination followed by a second termination is what gets merchants MATCH-listed.
Day 1
Assemble the underwriting file.
The checklist below. Every acquirer worth having will ask for all of it. The file, not the application, is what decides whether you are live in weeks or months.
Day 1–3
Go to acquirers that underwrite your vertical knowingly.
Not the ones that say yes first. The ones that know your category's dispute profile, price the reserve on your history, and will still be there in a bad month. Knowing which is which is most of what we do.
What every acquirer will ask for.
Have it ready before the first conversation. It is the difference between weeks and months.
- Processing history: six months of volume, chargeback and refund ratios by month, exported from the old portal while you still have access
- Declines by country and card type, if you can export them
- Group structure chart with the contracting entity and UBOs
- Licenses or registrations relevant to your vertical and markets
- Website, product description, fulfilment and refund policy, billing descriptor
- KYC / AML program where the vertical requires one
- Bank statements and financials the acquirer's underwriting asks for
Weeks of zero.
A merchant told us its PSP was excellent and it did not need redundancy. That PSP later announced a change in risk appetite and offboarded it. Onboarding a replacement started the same day and took weeks. For those weeks, revenue was zero. Not reduced: zero.
The fix is not a faster replacement. It is a second acquirer that already carries a few percent of your volume before the letter arrives, so the letter is a routing change, not an outage. How that is built →
Most of this page still applies. Our placement does not.
Infrastructure work pays for itself from roughly $100K a month in card volume; below that, the acquirers we work with will not board the file and we would be wasting your time. Do steps Day 0 and Day 1 above yourself, go to acquirers that publish their vertical appetite, and answer every underwriting question truthfully. If your volume grows past the line, come back.
My acquirer closed my account with money in it. When do I get it?
The agreement usually allows the acquirer to hold settled funds and the rolling reserve for 30 to 180 days after termination, to cover chargebacks that arrive after the fact. In most cases we see, it is the full 180 days. Read the termination clause for the exact period, and ask in writing for the release schedule. Money that is genuinely yours comes back; the question is when, and whether anything is deducted for disputes in the meantime.
Is being terminated the same as being on the MATCH list?
No. Termination is the acquirer ending the relationship. MATCH (Mastercard's Member Alert to Control High-risk) is a separate listing the acquirer may add you to, with a reason code, that other acquirers check at onboarding. Most first terminations do not involve a MATCH listing; a second termination often does. Do not expect the acquirer to tell you: most treat confirming a MATCH listing as tipping off and will not answer. The next acquirer will see it at boarding regardless, which is one more reason to go to acquirers that underwrite your vertical knowingly rather than the first one that says yes.
Why did my PSP close my account for no reason?
There is always a reason; it is rarely disclosed. Most acquirers will say only that it was a risk decision or that you are outside their risk appetite, and leave it there. The three real reasons we see most: the acquirer's risk appetite for your category changed (nothing you did); your chargeback or fraud ratio crossed a scheme monitoring threshold; or the account was boarded under a description that no longer matches what the transactions show. A merchant told us its PSP was excellent and it did not need a second one. The PSP later changed risk appetite and offboarded it. Revenue was zero for the weeks it took to onboard a replacement.
Stripe closed my account with money in it. What now?
Stripe, like PayPal and Shopify Payments, can hold the balance for up to 180 days to cover disputes that arrive after closure; the exact period is in your agreement and the closure email. Download every report while you still have dashboard access. Appeal once, with facts, and do not count on it. Then start the underwriting file on this page: a dedicated merchant account with an acquirer that boards your category knowingly is the only durable fix, and it takes weeks, so the day to start is today.
Why does Stripe close accounts for no reason?
Because you were never underwritten by a person. Aggregators board everyone in minutes and let automated rules decide later: restricted category, chargeback ratio, a volume spike, a product change, a flagged keyword on your site. The rule fires, the account closes, and support can only confirm the decision. That is the trade you made for instant onboarding. A dedicated merchant account is the opposite trade: slower to open, far harder to lose.
Can I just sign up with another PSP today?
You can apply today. You cannot be live today, not with an acquirer that will keep you. Instant-approval providers exist, and they are the ones that hold your funds in month three when they finally underwrite you. A real second acquirer, with a complete underwriting file, takes weeks. The file is on this page. Start it now.
Will the new acquirer ask why I am moving?
Rarely. Acquirers ask for processing history and ratios, and check MATCH automatically; they seldom ask for a termination letter or a reason for leaving, and most merchants move for better service or pricing and say exactly that. Answer every question you are asked truthfully and never misstate your ratios or history: the numbers are checked, and a misrepresentation discovered later is the fastest route to a second termination and a MATCH listing.
How do I stop this from happening again?
A second acquirer that already carries live volume before you need it. Not a backup contract in a drawer: a path with real traffic, tested failover, and reconciliation that works. Then a risk-appetite change at one provider is a bad week, not a dead quarter. This is the single thing we build for every client, in every vertical.
Does Milestone help with the money that is being held?
We help you read the agreement, ask the right questions in writing, and understand what is recoverable and when. We are not lawyers; for a dispute over held funds, engage counsel in the acquirer's jurisdiction. What we do is get you processing again, which is the part that matters more within 72 hours.
How is Milestone paid for this?
By the acquirer you end up using, as a commission on volume. No fee to you for the review, including in an emergency. We place with whichever of ~30 providers will board your file, so we have no reason to push one.
Reserves vs holds
Percentage, cap, release schedule, change rights.
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