Advice on incorporation & merchant account?

Hi,

I'm looking to get a merchant account for my website that sells video game currency/items. This industry is considered "high-risk," even though chargebacks are pretty much 0% with proper fraud prevention.

I'm a Canadian citizen and formed a US LLC (Delaware) for the purpose of getting a merchant account, I'm using Wise as the bank account.

I spoke with one processor that doesn't have an issue with this industry but they require a US signer. The US signer would also need to have some kind of provable "tie" to the business.

Question 1: Do all payment processors require NON-US citizens with US businesses to have a US signer? Is this the same for all countries of incorporation?

Question 2: Would having a US signer with a "tie" to the business have tax implications? Aside from that, there should be no tax requirements since there are no operations in the US, and 0 sales taxes in Delaware.

Something that may be important to note is that a lot of businesses in this industry are incorporated in the UK, if anyone knows why that would be, or if it would be ideal for my situation please let me know.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

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Edit:
It will take several weeks before I get the EIN for the US LLC, so I might form a Canadian company if I can find a processor that accepts this industry and Canadian businesses. This would be a short-term solution while I get a more tax-friendly setup figured out for the long term, especially when I leave Canada. If anyone knows of some processors that would accept this business, please let me know.

Last edited: Dec 21, 2022