Spend Card Security: A Guide to Category Restrictions on Ribbon

Ribbon provides an automated system that blocks certain spend categories, and sponsor admins have the additional flexibility to impose category restrictions based on their program's needs.

Automated Category Restrictions:

Ribbon automatically blocks transactions in certain spend categories to enhance security and compliance. These categories include but are not limited to:

  • Political Organizations
  • Dating/Escort Services
  • Betting/Casino Gambling
  • Massage Parlors
  • Direct Marketing - Inbound Telemarketing
  • Direct Marketing - Subscription
  • Miscellaneous General Services
  • Information Retrieval Services

Sponsor's Additional Control:

Sponsors hold the authority to further restrict spend card transactions across all program cards. This can be achieved by managing spending categories, each associated with a specific merchant category code (MCC), under Sponsor Account Settings > Spending Controls.

How to Manage Spending Categories:

  1. Access Sponsor Account Settings > Spending Controls.
  2. Update the list of restricted categories for program cards. All purchases attempted in these selected categories by any program card will be automatically declined.

Simplified Management Process:

Adding or removing restricted spending categories is a straightforward process within the Ribbon platform. This feature ensures that sponsors can tailor spending controls according to their program's requirements with ease.