Fincin SSN Requirement
It very much used to be the case that non-profit organizations were exempt from this requirement, but on May 11, 2018 the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) enacted the Customer Due Diligence rule. This rule was put in place to prevent the funding of terrorism and other fraudulent activities. As required by law, it is now necessary to collect information on the authorized signer for ALL organizations that seek to obtain a merchant account for processing.
Non-Profit organizations are no longer exempt from providing this information when seeking to obtain a merchant account for processing in the United States.
The name, title, SSN and date of birth must be provided for whomever is being named the Authorized Signer. It can be anyone that has the authority to make financial decisions for the organization, but must all match to one individual. There are no credit checks run against the SSN. One individual may be completing the enrollment and still have the ability to name a different individual as the Authorized Signer if they are not naming themself. There are no exceptions to this new government requirement. In many instances our 501(c)(3) clients will have a Board member or the Executive Director named as the Authorized Signer.
The Authorized Signer information is only used for the Underwriting process, to gain approval on your new merchant account. It is never shared or used for any other purpose. There is no credit check run during Underwriting. The signer information is used to confirm legal US citizenship and that the individual named is not affiliated with any OFAC watch lists.
We are required to validate and confirm the Legal Entity, the intended operating Bank Account and also the named Authorized Signer prior to activating any new merchant account.