Due to various restrictions, we’re unable to serve a handful of business categories.

These business categories include companies, services, and activities that involve the buying or selling of country-prohibited items and services, illegal items, narcotics, firearms and stolen property, and we've outlined them below:

Products, services, transactions or activities that relate to the sale and/or purchase of the following items:

• Banned narcotics, steroids, certain controlled substances or other products that present a risk to a consumer's safety

• Blood, bodily fluids or body parts

• Burglary tools

• Counterfeit items

• Illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia

• Fireworks, destructive devices and explosives

• Identity documents, government documents, personal financial records or personal information (in any form, including mailing lists)

• Lottery tickets, sweepstakes entries or slot machines without the required licence

• Offensive material or hate speech or items that promote hate, violence, racial intolerance, or the financial exploitation of a crime

• Chemicals

• Recalled items

• Prohibited services

• Unlicensed financial services, stocks or other securities

• Stolen property

• Items that infringe or violate any copyright, trademark, right of publicity or privacy or any other proprietary right under the laws of any jurisdiction

• Sales of currency without BDC licence, cryptocurrency operators

• Obscene material or pornography

• Certain sexually oriented materials or services

• Certain firearms, firearm parts or accessories, ammunition, weapons or knives

• Any product or service that is illegal or marketed or sold in such a way as to create liability to Paystack

• Production of military and paramilitary wears and accoutrement, including those of the Police and the Customs, Immigration and Prison Services.

Products, services or activities that relate to transactions that:

• show the personal information of third parties in violation of applicable law;

• support pyramid or Ponzi schemes, matrix programs, other "get rich quick" schemes or certain multi-level marketing programs;

• are associated with purchases of annuities or lottery contracts, lay-away systems, off-shore banking or transactions to finance or refinance debts funded by a credit card;

• violates any law or government regulation, or promotes or facilitates such by third parties;

• violates any rule or regulation of Visa, MasterCard, Verve, American Express or any other electronic funds transfer network (each, a “Card Network”);

• is fraudulent, deceptive, unfair or predatory;

• causes or threatens reputational damage to us or any Card Network;

• results in or creates a significant risk of chargebacks, penalties, damages or other harm or liability for customers, yourself as a merchant, Paystack, the service providers that we rely on to provide our services or any Card Network.

• pertain to ammunitions and arms, and

• involve gambling, gaming and/or any other activity with an entry fee and a prize, including, but not limited to, casino games, sports betting, horse or greyhound racing, lottery tickets, other ventures that facilitate gambling, games of skill (whether or not it is legally defined as a lottery) and sweepstakes unless the operator has obtained prior approval from Paystack and the operator and customers are located exclusively in jurisdictions where such activities are permitted by law.

• Cryptocurrency trading

• Forex trading and currency exchange

• Products and services that fall within the Import Prohibitions and Restrictions List of the Customs division of the Ghana Revenue Authority.

Due to the guidelines from the card schemes (Visa and Mastercard), we cannot support card transactions for some high-risk businesses in Ghana.

If you sign up as a Ghanaian business on Paystack under the listed categories, you’ll only have mobile money and USSD (coming soon) payment channels by default, and your customers can’t pay you with their card or Apple Pay.

However, for specific categories highlighted below, we can enable the card channel after conducting further reviews and obtaining additional KYC documents.

If your business falls under any of the following categories, you’ll not have access to receive card payments on Paystack, including local and international card payments and Apple Pay. However, your customers can pay you via the mobile money channel and USSD (coming soon), and you will still have access to our other services, e.g., transfers.

• Dating and escort services

• Direct marketing: inbound telemarketing merchants

• Direct marketing: outbound telemarketing merchants

• Direct marketing: travel-related arrangement services

• Non-face-to-face tobacco products merchants

• Non-face-to-face adult content and services merchants

• Pawn shops

• Skill games merchants

• Precious stones jewellery

• Computer network/information services for the sale of access to cyberlockers or remote digital file-sharing services, internet service providers, etc.

• Digital goods: games for transactions involving skilled game wagering (for example, daily fantasy sports)

• Non-fiat currency and liquid and cryptocurrency assets (for example, cryptocurrency, money orders [not money transfer], traveller's cheques, and debt repayment) for the sale of cryptocurrencies, etc.

If your business falls under any of the following categories, we may still be able to process card transactions for you, but additional documentation will be required. If you’re interested, please email us at support@paystack.com so we can guide you through the KYC process.

• Non-face-to-face prescription drug and pharmaceutical merchants

• Betting, including lottery tickets, casino gaming chips, off-track betting, and wagers at race tracks.

• Security brokers/dealers (fintech: investments, forex, etc.)

• Quasi-cash / non-financial Institutions: foreign currency

• Financial Institutions: merchandise & services

There are no pricing changes for card transactions for high-risk businesses, except those in the betting category. 

For more information about the high-risk categories listed above, please refer to the guides listed below:

• Mastercard Merchant Category Reference Booklet

• Visa Merchant Data Standard Manual

If you have any questions about accepting card transactions for your business, contact our support team via the live chat option on your dashboard, +233 596 992990, or via email at support@paystack.com.

• Cryptocurrency trading

• Dropshipping

• Forex trading and currency exchange

• Products and services that fall within the prohibition list provided in the East African Community Customs Management Act, 2004 or any other Applicable Law.

• Cryptocurrency trading

• International Money Transfer Operators (IMTOs)

• Forex trading and currency exchange

• Products and services that fall within the prohibition list of the Nigerian Customs Administration of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

• Cryptocurrency trading

• Dropshipping

• Mobile wallet services

• Lending

• Remittance businesses

• Savings businesses

• Betting

• Lotteries

• Products and services that fall within the Consolidated List of Prohibited and Restricted Imports and Exports, maintained by SARS Customs and Excise in terms of section 113(8)(a) of the Customs and Excise Act 91 of 1964.

You can visit the Acceptable Use Policy section of our Terms of Service for more information.