Author: Maria Sparagis

Maria Sparagis is President of DirectPayNet, where she's spent over 20 years helping businesses scale to six-, seven-, and eight-figure revenue through optimized payment processing. She works hands-on with business owners to solve merchant account challenges, reduce processing costs, and implement payment strategies that support real growth. Maria is a regular speaker at fintech conferences and writes about practical approaches that help businesses break through revenue plateaus.

MLM & Biz-Op Companies: How to Overcome Merchant Account Obstacles

Multi-level marketing (MLM) companies, business coaches and other business opportunity (biz-op) ventures all face issues with getting approval for a merchant account. Banks and other payment providers are weary to work with these high-risk models. This is thanks to reputational damage caused by a few dishonest operators in the industry. Therefore, many merchants in this […]

Thank Us Later – Your Own Merchant Account Vs. Being An Amazon Seller

Thank Us Later - Your Own Merchant Account Vs. Being An Amazon Seller

In the past 12 months, DirectPayNet has noticed more and more Amazon sellers are opting for a merchant account. The benefits are significant as vendors want independent websites, control over product pricing, bigger profits and an easier time trading in high-risk industries restricted by Amazon. Unfortunately, those that are engaged in high-risk categories (e.g. electronics, […]

PSD2, Strong Consumer Authentication For Beginner High-Risk Merchants

Strong Customer Authentication (SCA)

From 14th September 2019, merchants operating in the European Economic Area (EEA) will be subject to new regulations: the Strong Customer Authentication (SCA). This is a two-factor authentication (2FA) that will protect certain electronic and remote payments. The strong consumer authentication is an extension to the second EU Payment Services Directive (PSD2). It was a […]

Improving Your Odds – Sports Betting Payment Processing For Winners

Sports Betting Payment Processing For Winners

Is your sports betting payment processing working to grow your business? It might be time to re-evaluate the play to improve your odds of success! Sports betting was made legal at the federal level in the USA just over a year ago. We’re sure you were one of the companies that enjoyed hearing that the […]

Facebook’s GlobalCoin Will Change High-Risk Merchant Payments Forever

Facebook's GlobalCoin will have an impact on high-risk merchant accounts

Last month, Facebook confirmed its cryptocurrency GlobalCoin will be in about “one dozen countries” by this time next year. Rumors state it could now happen by Q3. No surprise! It was only a matter of time before Facebook announced its intention to wade into the cryptocurrency waters. Effectively holding power over a currency that can […]