Merchant Discount Rates

All of the accounts we offer are direct accounts so you won’t need to worry about sharing your MID or Virtual Terminal with other merchants on an aggregate account. We provide both domestic and offshore high risk merchant accounts.

We also provide back-up/secondary accounts if you already have a merchant account with another bank.

Please find our low discounted merchant account rates below!

Industry	Starting Rates
Pharmacy	6-8%(Minimum 50k+ with processing)
Tech Support	4-10% (Start-ups allowed)
Herbal/Nutra	3.5-6.95% (Minimum 50k+ with processing)
Medical Marijuana (MMJ)	4-6.95% (Start-ups allowed)
Forex	4-6.95% (Minimum 50k+ with processing)
Online Dating	3.5-6.95% (Minimum 50k+ with processing)
Replica	6-8.95% (Visa only/200k min with processing)
Binary	3.5-6.95% (Minimum 50k+ with processing)
MLM	4-7% (Start-ups allowed)
Travel	3.5-6.95% (Start-ups allowed)
Firearms	3-6% (Start-ups allowed)
Credit Repair	6-7.85% (Start-ups allowed)
Other	Please Inquire

For more information on our accounts and discounted rates please feel free to contact us at sales@internationalibcbanking.com

Check Your Credit-Card Bills for These Added Fees

Some credit-card holders are unknowingly paying for identity-theft protection and related services. Cardholders, especially those who signed up for a new card over the past few years, should check their statements for fees related to services that they may not have asked for and may not want.

In an action announced Thursday, federal regulators fined U.S. Bancorp USB -1.43% $9 million and required it to return $48 million to customers over “illegal billing practices” related to the bank’s identity-theft products. The customers were signed up without th
eir consent and in many cases didn’t actually receive the promised service, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said.

The action follows related orders by the CFPB and the OCC against Bank of America BAC -1.86% and J.P. Morgan Chase JPM -2.01%.

When consumers sign up for a credit card, most issuers will offer so-called identity-theft protection services and credit-monitoring services that are supposed to inform cardholders of possible signs of fraudulent activity on their cards. The pitches have picked up over the past four years as large data breaches at retailers and elsewhere have increased, compromising more consumer information. Issuers’ customer-service call centers also pitch the services to existing cardholders, as do many automated call services customers contact to activate their cards.

One problem: Many issuers have been enrolling new cardholders in these services without the proper authorization, and those consumers are often unaware that they’ve signed up for them or that they’re being charged.

If cardholders see such charges on their statements they should go through their previous statements to find out how long they’ve been charged. Consumers who didn’t sign up for these services and don’t want them should contact their issuer and ask for a refund. If that doesn’t work, they can file a complaint with the CFPB on its website.

The services themselves, which cost around $10 to $30 a month, have some drawbacks. They can’t prevent identity theft. And even if consumers make no other charges on their card, they’ll still need to pay this or incur late fees.

Consumers can take steps on their own to track their credit for free. They can ask credit-card issuers to alert them by phone about charges beyond a certain dollar amount—a free service. They can check their credit report from each of the three major credit-reporting firms for free every 12 months at AnnualCreditReport.com.

They can also place a “fraud alert” on their credit report with one of the credit-reporting firms. In that case, lenders will take extra steps to confirm the identity of the person applying for credit in their name.

Credit experts say the add-on services tend to help banks more than consumers. They require little legwork for the banks, which market the services but rely on other companies to provide them. For banks, the services have provided an extra source of revenue at a time when generating fee income from checking accounts and credit cards has become harder due to recent regulations. In contrast, these services are largely unregulated, though recent regulatory actions could result in banks being more cautious about how they proceed in this space.

Original article can be found here.

Why The Bitcoin Price Dropped Today

Normally in the Bitcoin world sudden price fluctuations ranging from $10-$30 can be attributed to market manipulation by large holders of the virtual currency. However, when the price changes greater than $30 in a short period of time there is typically something more behind it such as imposed government regulations or technical implications such as a mining pool nearing 51% of the total network hash rate.

Today, September 18, 2014, the price of Bitcoin is down 9.39% ($42.70) at the time of writing this article and has decreased by a whopping 17% this week (≈$70) with no clear indications as to why. Through our analysis we believe we have determined the reason. It has nothing to do with the Bitcoin industry but rather the upcoming IPO of Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce giant, which is set to go public tomorrow, Friday the 19th, which would bring in a vast amount of support from Chinese investors from banks to individuals who have wanted to showcase that the Chinese market means business for quite some time, and this is their golden ticket to do so.

The Alibaba IPO has generated a lot of noise in the financial markets as the IPO date has drawn closer and tonight the leading Wall Street investment banks are holding a meeting to determine the official share pricing of Alibaba as it hits the markets tomorrow. Originally the price per share was said to be in the $60 range, but earlier this week Alibaba raised that estimate to $66-$68 per share. We believe that the Chinese Bitcoin holders began dumping their holdings earlier this week to free up capital to invest in Alibaba when it goes public.

The largest Bitcoin exchange by volume, BTC China, which covers an average of 38% of the total Bitcoin transactions has averaged around 19,000 Bitcoin per day in trades. Today, the volume is currently up over 52% at 29,400 Bitcoin and rising.

On top of increased volume on Chinese exchanges, the volume on the European exchange platform Bitstamp is up well over 100% today at around 21,400 Bitcoin compared to the monthly average of 9,200 Bitcoin. This is right after many of the leading German analysts from renowned investment banks have indicated that Alibaba is a strong buy.

Based on this information, we have concluded that many large Bitcoin investors from China and Europe have exited their positions in Bitcoin to put into the Alibaba IPO.

Are these investors gone for good? No, many factors will determine how long it is before these investors close their positions in Alibaba and re-enter the Bitcoin market. If the Wall Street banks issue an initial price lower than expected we could see the price rebound slightly as soon as tonight. After that, the key factors will include how the price fluctuates during the public offering tomorrow and Post-IPO early next week. If Alibaba remains strong and continues to grow in value, we may not see this money flow back into the Bitcoin market until a “bump” in the economy occurs.

The U.S. Federal Reserve has kept interest rates low as indicated in their public statement yesterday, but they intend to begin raising them as we head into 2015. If this scenario were to occur mid-2015 would be a definite point in time when the investment money flows back into Bitcoin, and at even greater volume due to the gains achieved by investing in Alibaba long-term.

Is it guaranteed that the money will flow back into Bitcoin? While nothing is ever set in stone, our research has shown a correlation between the price of Gold and Bitcoin price movements. This being said, Gold tends to rise, based on historical records, when the markets start to become unstable. So we do believe that a vast majority of the money invested in Alibaba and the gains associated will find its way back into Bitcoin.

Original article can be found here.

Apple Partners With Visa, MasterCard, AmEx for iPhone 6 Payments: Reports

According to new reports from Bloomberg and other outlets, Apple has partnered with Visa, MasterCard and American Express to create a mobile payment platform, allowing users to pay with their iPhones in brick and mortar stores.

Last week Wired reported that the next iPhone will likely include a near field communication chip (NFC), which would make these types of mobile payments possible.

With an NFC chip, a small amount of data can be transferred between devices held near each other. Google Wallet is an NFC-enabled mobile payment platform that has been around for a while now but just hasn't quite caught on. Retailers could be partly to blame as some have been slow to adopt the new technology.


However, Visa and MasterCard have set an October 2015 deadline for U.S. retailers to make the switch from reading cards via magnetic strips to using newer embedded chips.

So it seems like the timing is perfect for Apple to start implementing a mobile payment feature.

And despite Google getting lackluster results with its efforts, a market analyst told Bloomberg things look better for Apple. "Love it or hate it, Apple drives a lot of standards in the industry. They are the mover in these markets. When they do something, the industry seems to follow."

If the reports are true, Apple is likely to announce the feature at its product event Sept. 9, when the iPhone 6 is expected to be unveiled.

Original article can be found here.

Russia launches China UnionPay credit card

Forget Visa and MasterCard. After the two American credit system payment companies froze accounts without notice in March, Russia has been looking for an alternative in China UnionPay.  China UnionPay plans to have 2 million cards in Russia in the next three years.

Instead of seeing the small Visa and MasterCard logo on credits cards, ATMs, and retail outlets, Russians will start to see the three words “China. Union. Pay.”

China UnionPay first emerged in 2002 on the domestic Chinese market as an alternative to Visa and MasterCard, but quickly expanded internationally, and now is already number one in terms of quantity of cards in the world.

Russia’s biggest banks - VTB- Gazprombank, Promsvyazbank, Alfa Bank, MTS, and Rosbank- are already making technical preparations, running tests on Union Bank cards.

“VTB24 already serves China UnionPay cards in its ATM network and now the bank is in negotiations with this payment system to start acquiring retail merchants,” VTB24’s press office said in a statement.

Most banks just began their relationship with China by offering clients corresponding services- none of the bankers imagined that they would be issuing Chinese credit cards.

In March, both Visa and MasterCard blocked the accounts of cardholders at BankRossiya and SMF Bank, both which were sanctioned by the US over Russia’s involvement in Crimea.

Russian financiers who used to keep their assets in dollars and euros were shocked by the event, and moved their capital back to Russia out of fear one day all their assets would be blocked by politicians in Washington DC.

“Visa and MasterCard have 100 percent trust, but right now, there is no trust in the system, and many, even our clients, have shifted their transactions from American dollar and Euro to Yuan. They are eager to receive this card- we already have a big list of people waiting to get this card instead of MasterCard and Visa,” Denis Fonov, Deputy Chairman at LightBank, a small Moscow-based bank, told RT.

LightBank was working with UnionPay long before it knew the cards would be coming to the Russian market - and ordered 10,000 cards pre-emptively as a side service for clients.

As a result of the freeze, Visa and MasterCard will now have to pay a security deposit to Russia’s Central Bank, which is estimated to be billions for each company. Similarly, once UnionPay begins operating in Russia, it will also put down a security deposit with Russia’s Central Bank, about $3-4 billion, Fonov said.

$5.3 trillion in payments

There are already 20,000 cards in circulation in Russia, and a second order of 100,000 cards is planned for September. In Russia many banks accept UnionPay cards, but not merchants, that’s the next step.

By the beginning of 2014, the payment system had already issued 4.2 billion cards, mostly in China.
In terms of total world trade turnover, China UnionPay is the leader in debt cards, with over $5.3 trillion in payments, or about 47 percent of the market share, whereas Visa has 40.6 percent, and MasterCard only 12.2 percent, according to the Nilson Report.

In overall transactions, Visa is still the leader with $4.6 trillion, and China UnionPay comes in second with $2.5 trillion in transactions in the first half of last year.

UnionPay already successfully operates in Australia and Canada, with their deposits tied to both the local currency and the yuan. In total, UnionPay operates in 142 countries.

China’s UnionPay will be a temporary solution for Russia to detach from the West while it prepares to launch its own payment system, which officially isn’t slated to begin operating for another 16 months, and according to sources in the industry, it could even be 2-3 years out.


Original article can be found here.

Visa, MasterCard Must Find Russian Partner to Avoid Paying Security Deposit

The Russian government has officially declared the conditions that will allow international payment systems Visa and MasterCard to continue business in Russia without paying the massive security deposit that had threatened to shove them out of the country.

To avoid paying the security deposit and fines for interruption of service, the companies must find a Russian payment system deemed "of national importance" to process their transactions by Oct. 31, according to a decree signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on July 15 and published Tuesday on the government's website.

This solution to the standoff was floated by Central Bank chief Elvira Nabiullina at a banking conference earlier this month.

Reuters reported previously that MasterCard had already begun searching for a Russian partner to help it circumvent the law.

Visa and MasterCard's problems in Russia began in March, when they abruptly cut off service to two Russian banks in an effort to comply with U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia following its annexation of Crimea.

The denial of service set off a movement spearheaded by President Vladimir Putin to end Russia's dependence on foreign payment systems, which culminated in a law signed by Putin in May that laid the groundwork for the creation of a national payment system to replace foreign players.

The law would also have forced international payment systems to submit a hefty security deposit to the Central Bank in order to continue operating in Russia. Morgan Stanley analysts at the time estimated that the joint deposit for Visa and MasterCard could amount to $2.9 billion, which is five times more than their annual revenues in Russia.

The law set off a flurry of negotiations and proposals on ways to keep Visa and MasterCard, who together process about 90 percent of transactions in Russia, from leaving the market altogether.

Also on Tuesday, the government published the requirements that payment systems will have to fulfill to be considered "of national importance" — a status that will exempt them from having to submit a security deposit.

At least 25 percent of the payment infrastructure, applications and software that the systems use must be developed by Russian organizations and provided under contracts lasting at least five years, among other requirements.

As of Tuesday, only one Russian payment system had received this status — the National Settlement Depositary, a part of the Moscow Stock Exchange group.

Nabiullina said at the end of June that the national payment system will be created within six months, ITAR-Tass reported.

Original article can be found here.

Is Gold Gaining Entry Into The World Of Bitcoin?

While some industry veterans continue to advance skepticism concerning the future of bitcoin, some important developments are beginning to take place in favor of the digital currency. Gold-for-bitcoin trading is an emerging trend that might finally fully reinforce the belief of investors from new generation that bitcoin is headed to become an e-commerce standard. Other precious metals too are being traded for bitcoin as more companies are keen to capitalize on investment interests from China market.

Bitcoin is certainly the new “gold rush” and has also been called “gold 2.0”. Despite the volatility which has seen the virtual currency drop in value by as much as 50% in a day, companies that sell gold bullions are now joining its bandwagon. The movement from government regulated traditional currencies, which have increasingly become unpopular with new generation investors, to a globally accepted digital currency as things stand seems unstoppable. Anthem Vault from Nevada is one of the companies that have started exchanging gold and silver for bitcoins. Many other companies are doing the same because they have always wanted to take advantage of digital sales. Bitcoin to some of these precious metal sellers is a safer alternative to debit or credit cards which are prone to bad payment risks.

Smaller retailers in the precious metal industry have also discovered that by accepting bitcoin they can actually avoid the fees of processing payments associated with currencies that are backed by governments. For this reason, CBMint has joined the gold-for-bitcoin trading craze. The precious metal retailer believes that bitcoin is the future mainstream currency and therefore accepting it this early and fusing e-commerce will provide an edge over its competition. Despite the skeptics terming the exchange of gold for bitcoin as risky investments, the precious metal retailers engaging in this trade believe that hedging options are becoming available and getting better. In any case, volatility has not hit bitcoin only but also gold itself by as much as 25%.

For gold to gain entry into the bitcoin world, the market in China has a lot to do with it too. The largest bitcoin exchange in the world in terms of trading volume has been the BTC China. The China market was also the top consumer of gold for the year 2013. The move of precious metal sellers to start accepting bitcoin is therefore not much surprising as they are definitely attracted by the synergy in this market.

Perhaps the greatest risk facing sellers of gold and other precious metals if they do not accept bitcoin has to do with the expectation that the digital currency might finally win over any other medium of exchange. If you take bitcoin vs gold in terms of durability, portability, divisibility, fungibility, limited supply and acceptability, the virtual currency wins almost everything. Perhaps gold here is only a winner in terms of durability but this is still debatable.

Considering the way things are unfolding with gold now being exchanged for bitcoins, what looks like a big gamble for investors to take might end up with untold victory for them. Everyone who has not accepted bitcoin might find themselves forced to do so later to avoid losing business. That is exactly what happened to those who initially did not want to accept credit cards. Gold will never be a practical currency for the new generation, but bitcoin certainly is even at this stage without legislation. Precious metal sellers might have finally seen the light to start exchanging gold for the bitcoin.

Original article can be found here.