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Getting Started With Affirm: Compliance and Guidelines

  • Updated

Contents

  1. Overview
  2. Affirm Compliance Guide
  3. Marketing Compliance Guides
  4. Marketing Toolkit
  5. Policies and Regulations
  6. Compliance Marketing Remediation: Integrishield

 

 

Overview

Affirm services are subject to various consumer protection laws that also affect your compliance responsibilities as a merchant and your agreement with Affirm. Your marketing and terms must comply with various U.S. and international regulations, which include the Truth in Lending Act, Equal Credit Opportunity Act, and the CAN-SPAM Act.

 

You can find all the necessary resources to learn about complying with Affirm requirements on this page. These resources include the Affirm compliance general guide, marketing compliance guides, a marketing toolkit, and policies & regulations. Affirm offers pay-over-time solutions in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Feel free to refer to the appropriate section for each country.

 

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Affirm Compliance Guide

United States Affirm Compliance Guide

The US Affirm Compliance Guide training can help you understand your obligations with Affirm. Below is a list of some of the most common Affirm requirements you should be aware of:

  1. Completing an application for a payment plan
  2. Preventing fraud
  3. Merchant fees
  4. Dealing in an ethical and fair manner with customers
  5. Compliance with your refund and return policy
  6. Avoiding high-pressure sales tactics
  7. Using Affirm approved marketing materials
  8. Not engaging in prohibited businesses

 

To explore further about Affirm and the various integration options we provide, you may want to check out our eLearning & Training resources.

 

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Marketing Compliance Guides

Before getting started with your marketing, we recommend reviewing our marketing compliance guides depending on which Affirm financing option you offer and the country.

 

Additionally, some of your messaging may require adding disclosure information. These guides describe when particular disclosures are needed, where they should go, and what they should say.

 

United States Marketing Compliance Guides

Canada Marketing Compliance Guide

United Kingdom Marketing Compliance Guide

Shop Pay Installments (SPI) Marketing Compliance Guide

 

It’s important to maintain quality and compliance when it comes to marketing materials, so you should submit all marketing materials including site banners, messaging, landing pages and email communications to the Merchant Care Team for review before deploying live on your site. Allow 5 to 10 business days for this approval process.

 

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Marketing Toolkit

The marketing toolkit includes a number of assets to help you bring awareness to Affirm's flexible payment options at every phase of the shopping journey—increasing conversion and average order value for your business.

 

United States Marketing Toolkit

 

Assets:

Canada Marketing Toolkit

Assets:

United Kingdom Marketing Toolkit

Assets:

 

We recommend using Affirm-hosted assets whenever possible to take advantage of our CDN's performance and to make sure that the images used are always up-to-date.

 

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Policies & Regulations

 

Prohibited Business Policy

 

Platform Merchant Sanctions Program

To the extent that a merchant enables a third party to offer the services (e.g., a marketplace, franchise or platform) ('Platform Merchant'), the merchant must establish, maintain, and comply with a comprehensive sanctions program ('Merchant Sanctions Program') that meets the minimum requirements under applicable law. Upon request, the merchant will make commercially reasonable efforts to correct any deficiencies in the Merchant Sanctions Program identified by Affirm, to the extent required to meet applicable law. Platform merchants must comply with all components of the documentation located at docs.affirm.com, including any elements specific to platform merchants.

 

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Compliance Marketing Remediation: Integrishield
 

Every piece of Affirm marketing—whether created by us or by our partners, like you—has to comply with certain laws. While we usually monitor all of these marketing assets ourselves, it’s no easy task. So we’re excited to announce that we’ve partnered with Integrishield, a third-party platform, to help us keep all of our marketing legally compliant.

What does this mean for you?

If Integrishield identifies an issue with one of your Affirm marketing assets, they’ll contact you with any required changes via email. We ask that you respond within 5 business days—either by sharing the updated materials or letting us know when you’ll be able to make the updates.

Keep in mind that any unresolved non-compliant marketing may impact your account services with Affirm.

 

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