What do you need for cards, acquiring and transfers?

Business cards pay expenses, acquiring accepts customer payments, and collection and payout services connect businesses with their trading partners. They all handle money, but the roles and onboarding questions differ. Start with the job before comparing prices.

This is a planning checklist. The actual documents, limits and approval depend on the provider, product, jurisdiction and entity.

The common foundation: who runs the business?

Businesses are commonly asked for registration documents, operating addresses, directors and ultimate beneficial owners, plus identification for an authorized representative. KYB concerns the business; KYC concerns relevant individuals. Ownership, control, sanctions and industry risk may also be checked.

Describe what you sell, who buys it, how you deliver it, expected monthly volume, average transaction size and the source of funds. Personal accounts, corporate products and platforms handling money for third parties have different requirements. An ordinary business account is not permission to pool unrelated third-party funds.

Submit sensitive records only through a verified official channel. Minimize exposure to card numbers, security codes and identity documents. Before handling card data, clarify PCI DSS responsibilities and the provider’s hosted or tokenized options.

Virtual cards: users, merchants and funding

Identify the actual users, their relationship to the business, issuing market, currencies and real merchant use cases, such as advertising, software or cloud services. Estimate card counts, budgets, transaction sizes and monthly spending.

Ask whether the product is prepaid, debit or credit, how it is funded and how a balance differs from a spending limit. Confirm issuing, transaction, FX and declined-transaction fees, plus refund handling and what happens to funds when a card is closed.

Check billing addresses, 3DS, recurring payments, merchant-category restrictions, freezing, closure and access removal when someone leaves the team. Success at one merchant does not guarantee acceptance by every merchant or with every card product.

Acquiring: the website and delivery matter

A merchant normally needs an accessible website showing real goods or services, prices, currencies, business contacts, privacy policy, terms, refunds and delivery arrangements. The website, legal entity and payment purpose should match.

Prepare target markets, methods, estimated volume, average order value and the split between recurring and one-off sales. Existing businesses can provide processing, refund and dispute history. Use real records rather than invented transactions intended to pass a review.

Confirm the merchant category, settlement account, currencies, schedule and any reserve requirements. Hosted checkout and direct API integration have different data responsibilities. Scope refunds, disputes, 3DS, callbacks and reconciliation alongside the payment itself.

Transfers: draw the path from sender to recipient

Distinguish sales revenue, marketplace settlements, supplier payments and payroll. Depending on the product, a provider may request contracts, orders, invoices, delivery evidence and an explanation of the relationship between the parties.

Prepare the recipient’s legal name, account number, bank and local clearing details. IBAN, SWIFT/BIC and ABA routing numbers apply to different countries and rails; they are not universal fields for every transfer.

Confirm countries, currencies, local account details, account ownership, same-name rules, permitted funding sources, payout fees, FX, returns and tracking. An account that supports a currency does not necessarily accept every source or unrelated third-party payment.

Integration: follow one real transaction end to end

Agree on creation, queries, callbacks, refunds or cancellations, reconciliation and exception recovery. Link business references to provider references. Query an unknown outcome before retrying, process callbacks idempotently and keep acceptance distinct from final completion.

Record sandbox checks separately from controlled live checks. Also agree on permissions, key storage, notification signatures, exact amounts and support ownership so a real incident can be traced.

Explore the payment map, virtual card platforms, merchant acquiring or cross-border transfers. Official starting points include MarshmelloPay, FuturePay, Airwallex and UQPAY.