What impact does the current COVID-19 epidemic have on GoPay's acceptance policy?
1. Face masks and respirators
We currently allow payments to be accepted only for merchants who meet these conditions:
the merchant has a longer business history with GoPay,
the merchant demonstrates that they have the relevant production and/or distribution facilities,
the merchant sells stock they hold or goods whose supply is demonstrably under their own control,
the merchant understands that on GoPay's request they will provide delivery notes for individual orders, or handover notes listing the goods dispatched,
the merchant understands that the settlement of funds from GoPay may be extended,
the merchant understands that for card payments acceptance is limited to payment cards issued in the Czech Republic.
Reasons for the measure:
As a result of the COVID-19 epidemic, over the past month we have registered an increase of several orders of magnitude in sales of these medical aids.
Unfortunately, a considerable number of fraudsters appear among the sellers, intending to collect the money and disappear. The percentage of fraud is so high that the Czech Trade Inspection Authority also draws attention to the problem on its website.
Another substantial complication is the less than fully guaranteed reliability of the distribution network, because these goods are in short supply worldwide and political interests often intervene in supplier–customer relationships, with consignments being held up or even confiscated.
For these reasons, sellers of face masks and respirators and their business model are subject to detailed scrutiny by acquiring banks, because the negative consequences of fraud or of an inability to deliver the promised goods within the promised deadlines affect them as well.
Based on our experience so far, entities without a sufficiently transparent history of trading in similar goods have little chance of passing this approval process, because with newly created entities it is not possible to reliably tell what intentions and experience the merchant is entering this segment with and what guarantees there are that their business will not cause nothing but damage.
2. Products declared to suppress the effects of COVID-19
Following the position of Mastercard, which has placed products declaring that they suppress the effects of the COVID-19 virus on BRAM (a Mastercard programme that records products and services prohibited for payment card acceptance), we are adjusting the acceptance policy towards these products as follows:
We will no longer allow payment card acceptance on any portal that offers any goods declared as protection or as a tool against the COVID-19 virus, including the synonyms "coronavirus", "corona" and others.
This restriction applies to:
any medical aids, such as respirators, filters, face masks and so on,
any technical means, such as air filters, ionisers, particle microfilters and so on,
disinfectants, gels, wipes, mechanical barriers (gloves, suits, shields) and so on,
test kits, vaccines, medicines including monitoring and measuring kits,
and similar.
The measure does not apply to manufacturers holding a certificate from the relevant government or EEA certification authority (ideally a CE certificate), or to their distributors or authorised sellers.
3. Events, tickets, membership of various associations
We are currently suspending acceptance for new merchants in this segment. We expect the suspension to last at least 2 months, depending on how government measures develop.
4. Travel agencies
We expect restrictions to be introduced in the near future.