High-risk merchants generally pose more financial risk, such as chargeback exposure, have "reputational" risk, and/or have regulatory risk, such as 'plant-touching' cannabis retailers.
Due to this, they require enhanced due diligence which typically means additional supporting documents (bank/processing history, etc.) and longer underwriting process (48-72 hours). Due to the ever changing landscape of high-risk, Equity Payments welcome pre-vets to ensure the merchant is acceptable should there be any doubt.