What do underwriters actually look at?
Your website, your processing history and your ownership, roughly in that order. A surprising share of declines are settled by what is visible on the site before anyone opens the financial file.
Underwriting is less mysterious than it looks. An underwriter is answering one question — if this merchant stops delivering tomorrow, how much am I on the hook for — and they answer it in a predictable order.
The website, first and fastest. Can they reach a checkout without an account? Are prices visible? Is there a refund policy, a privacy policy, terms, and a contact page with a real address? Does anything anywhere on the domain make a claim your category cannot make? That last one catches people, because it includes old blog posts and affiliate pages.
The processing statements. Volume, average ticket, refund rate and dispute ratio, read together. A 1.2% dispute ratio on a $40 average ticket is a different story from the same ratio on a $900 one.
The ownership. Who holds 25% or more, where they are resident, and whether any of them has been terminated or listed before under another entity.
The narrative, last. Whether the story you tell about a past termination matches the statements.
The order matters. A perfect financial file behind a website with a broken refund page will still get declined, and it will get declined quickly.