BIN Blocking, GEO Filtering & Risk Rules That Actually Work for High-Risk Merchants

In the high-risk payments world, iGaming, adult, cannabis, etc., fraud can kill margins, destroy trust, and end your relationships with payment processors. To stay safe, high-risk merchants need more than defaults: you need effective risk rules for high-risk merchants.

In this post, we’ll explore three powerful risk controls, BIN blocking, GEO filtering, and custom risk rules, that are already working for companies today. We’ll also show resources you can use to build or enhance your system.

What Are BIN Blocking, GEO Filtering, & Risk Rules?

• BIN Blocking: Preventing transactions from specific Bank Identification Numbers (the first 6 digits of a card) or BIN ranges that you know are associated with fraud, high chargebacks, or non-cooperative issuing banks.

• GEO Filtering: Allowing or blocking transactions from certain geographies based on IP, issuing country, device location, or combinations thereof. Filtering out traffic from regions you don’t serve or regions linked to high fraud.

• Risk Rules: Logical or rule-based thresholds that flag or block transactions based on criteria like velocity (number of transactions per minute/hour/day), mismatch in BIN vs IP country, frequency of failed attempts, etc.

Why These Controls Are Critical for High-Risk Merchants

High-risk merchants are more exposed to threats like card testing, BIN attacks, fraud from emerging geographies, and chargebacks due to bad actors. Using effective risk rules for high-risk merchants, you can reduce fraud losses, maintain better relationships with your PSPs/acquiring banks, and improve your transaction approval rates by rejecting or holding high-risk transactions before they hit you.

Real-World Examples & Resources

Here are real tools and approaches already in use:

1. TabaPay Defense — Offers out-of-the-box controls like BIN Block Lists, Country Block List, velocity checks, and location-based limits. Great example of risk rules that high-risk merchants can adapt.

2. GeoComply — Their geolocation integrity checks help with GEO Filtering: device integrity, IP vs device location mismatches, detecting location spoofing. This kind of filtering is especially useful in regulated or fraud-sensitive markets.

3. Stripe / Adyen using BIN checks and velocity rules — Many payment gateways (like Adyen’s RevenueProtect and Stripe’s risk/fraud modules) allow merchants to block BINs, set transaction or IP velocity limits, block/hold based on country mismatches, etc.

4. MaxMind’s Geo-Fencing — Tools that detect when a user crosses virtual geographic boundaries or when IP geolocation doesn’t match issuing country. Useful for GEO filtering to catch fraud or risky transactions.

How to Design Risk Rules That Actually Work

Here are steps & considerations to build effective risk rules for high-risk merchants:

• Start with data: Collect your own historical data: which BINs, geographies, transaction patterns have been problematic.

• Set reasonable velocity limits: e.g., max failed authorizations per IP or per card per hour/day.

• Match IP vs BIN country filter: If the issuing bank (via BIN) is different from the location/IP, that’s a risk signal.

• Use Proxy/VPN detection: Bots and fraudsters often use proxies; GEO filtering must be aware of this.

• Maintain whitelist/blacklist: Keep a “trusted” list (IP, BIN, geographies) and a “blocked” list.

• Shadow mode/soft-blocks: Test new rules in monitoring mode first (soft-declines or holds) before fully blocking, to avoid losing true customers.

• Review & iterate: Fraud patterns evolve. Review your rules monthly or quarterly and adjust.

Risks & Trade-Offs to Be Aware Of

Even with good risk rules, there are trade-offs:

• False positives: GEO filtering might block legitimate users who travel or use VPNs.

• User friction: Too many rules may create bad UX (e.g., declined transactions or too many identity checks).

• Operational complexity: More rules = more monitoring, more exceptions, more support overhead.

Balancing security with customer experience is key. Using “soft declines” or “flag & review” states help manage that balance with minimal business disruption.

For high-risk merchants, BIN blocking, GEO filtering, and well-designed custom risk rules are not optional, they’re essential. When done right, these controls reduce fraudulent chargebacks, improve approval rates, and protect your business reputation.

If you want help building or tuning your fraud strategy (risk rules, filtering, BIN blocking), we at PayConsults can partner with you, using data-driven, proven best-practices so you get protection without losing legitimate volume.