Thunes Prohibited and Restricted List

Prohibited Categories (no Services will be provided in respect of any of the following activities)	Examples (without limitation)
Arms, weapons & defence	Weapons of war, automatic weapons, ammunitions or defence equipment, includes merchants involved in the sales, intermediation or commerce of war or automatic weapons, including but not limited to chemical weapons, cluster bombs, ammunitions, or other defence equipment or similar. Weapon components (including certain replicas) such as firing pins, magazines, clips, and firearm conversion kits and any 3D-printed weapons. Pepper spray and stun guns. Machetes, disguised knives and knives with opening mechanisms designed for quick deployment of a blade. Certain pesticides and chemicals, toxic, flammable, combustible, or radioactive materials. Does not include digital weapons or digital skins.
Blood, organs, body parts	Black Market trade of blood or body parts. Non-regulated or unlicensed entities involved in the procurement, transportation or disposal of human or animal blood, organs or body parts.
Complex legal structures favouring anonymity	Shell companies (a company with no physical presence involving effective decision-making, operations or assets other than cash or equivalents of cash). Bearer share corporations and companies connected to nominee or similar arrangements, trust or other structures for the purpose of hiding or masking the true beneficial ownership.
Counterfeit or pirated goods	Includes (without limitation) products or services, that infringe upon intellectual property or proprietary rights of third parties, including digital goods and brand misrepresentation.
Illegal activities	Includes (without limitation) illegal drugs (includes prescription drugs sold without pharmaceutical licence, illegal substances OR substances/equipment that can be used to produce illegal substances (e.g. seeds).  Substances designed to imitate illicit or illegal drugs (legal highs, research chemicals).  Illegal trading, illegal goods, smuggled goods, or protected/cultural items & artefacts, concealment of goods. Complicity in criminal activity. Facilitating money laundering, tax evasion, terrorism financing. Any and all products or services that are in violation of law in the jurisdictions where your business is located or to which your business is targeted will fall into this category.
Political & religious propaganda / Political party	Includes (without limitation) persons that engage in, encourage, promote, or celebrate unlawful violence or physical harm to persons or property, persons that engage in, encourage, promote, or celebrate unlawful violence toward any group based on race, religion, disability, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, or any other immutable characteristic. All political and religious organisations.
Pornography and online or physical prostitution, model agencies, escort, adult services	Adult entertainment and content, including but not limited to, pornography and other visual content depicting explicitly sexual acts, services of sexual nature (webcam shows, live chats, prostitution, escorts, or intermediation of any of the aforementioned), human trafficking, sexually oriented establishments (massage parlours, strip clubs, gentleman’s clubs), adult live chats, sexually motivated dating services, and pornographic pay per view services.
Private military contractors	Including (without limitation) providers of armed or overseas mercenary services.
Rough and precious gems, precious and scrap metals trade	Uncut and un-shaped gemstones, businesses involved in the buying and settle of various metals.
Sex services	Anything which implies sex as a service.
Shell banks	Banks that do not maintain a physical presence in any country, often used to facilitate illicit financial activities.
Tax avoidance/optimization schemes	Any scheme/funds flow that would locally or internationally evade any applicable taxes or facilitate tax evasion.
Unauthorised tickets & gift cards sellers	Reselling tickets to events or concerts, or commercializing gift cards from well-known brands in each case without due authorizations.
Unlawful online gambling (incl. unlicensed casinos)	Games of chance including gambling, internet gambling, casino games, sweepstakes and contests, and fantasy sports leagues with a monetary or material prize. Games of skill including video game and mobile game tournaments or competitions, darts, card games, and board games with a monetary or material prize. Payments of an entry or player fee that promise the entrant or player will win a prize of value. Sports forecasting or odds-making with a monetary or material prize. Lotteries. Bidding fee auctions. In each case where unlawful to offer such products/services.
Unregulated financial services (where licensing is required)	Including (without limitation) pyramid schemes / multi-level marketing (MLM).  Hawala. Unlicenced FX broker. Binary options.  Get rich quick schemes.

Restricted Categories (requires specific written approval from Thunes and an enhanced due diligence process)	Examples (without limitation)
Airline and cruises	Commercial and private.
Affiliate marketing schemes, including network marketing, referral/recruitment marketing, multilevel marketing, commission-based sales.	Including (without limitation) promoting goods or services offered by merchants in exchange for an incentive from the merchant.
Art and antiques, auctioneers, auction houses, antique dealers, galleries
Business Consultants	Persons offering advisory services to other persons.
Cash intensive retail businesses	Non exhaustive list of cash intensive businesses: Beauty SuppliesButcher Shop / Meat MarketsCar washesDelicatessens, Fast foods & RestaurantsDry Cleaners / LaundriesHairdressers/ Barber ShopsMassage ParlorsNail Shops/ Nail SalonsNight ClubsPawn brokers/shopsPhysical Dating AgenciesSauna, hammam or bath housesSmoking ClubsTobacco/Vape/E-Cig/Controlled Product
Chemicals	Includes (without limitation) the commodity chemicals, diversified chemicals, fertilizers & agricultural chemics, industrial gases, and specialty chemicals industries.
Content creation platforms/content creators	Platforms/persons that host or distribute third-party content and enable content creators to receive content-related tips and other payments in exchange for their content or to sell exclusive content or digital goods.
Corporate service provider and other legal and accounting services	Outsourced corporate services. Business support services.
Crowdfunding, crowdlending and similar activities businesses	Raising funds from a wide pool of individual or professional investors.
Cyberlocker services	File sharing, file hosting.
Dating Services	Dating apps, matchmaking sites; coaching/advice providers to increase dating success.
Embassies, Diplomatic Missions, Consulates, Foreign Governments
Financial services	Including (without limitation) lenders, payday loans companies; debt/credit consolidation companies; debt collection agencies.
Gaming	Including (without limitation) the distribution of game keys; in-app purchases within games (such as buying in-app game currencies).
Import/export and cross-border logistics companies including maritime and land based shipping
Issuers and distributors of anonymous prepaid cards allowing withdrawals and transfers of funds	Emoney issuers or payment services providers allowing the issuance of payment instruments without performing any KYC.
Licensed gambling, including licensed casinos, wagering institutions, gaming in each case online or physical	Licensed casinos, wagering institutions, gambling (games of chance) and gaming (games of skill) where users bet against the house or play games to win money or other prizes
Marijuana Industry and other Recreational Drug Industries	Any business involved with Cannabidiol “CBD”.
Multi-Level Marketing Schemes (resellers)
Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) and Charities
Online Tobacco/Vape/E-Cig/Controlled Product reseller	Websites involved in the selling of tobacco, vape, e-cig and controlled tobacco centric products inclusive of related paraphernalia.
Payday loan companies	Also called a payday advance, salary loan, payroll loan, small dollar loan, short term, or cash advance loan. Any short-term unsecured loan, often characterized by high interest rates. Typically designed to cover immediate financial needs and intended to be repaid on the borrower’s next payday.
Pharmaceuticals	Includes any drug paraphernalia, pseudo-pharmaceuticals, and any other associated product, service or equipment.
Places of Religious Worship	Venues of mass congregation. e.g. temples, churches, mosques, synagogues etc.
Private Security Firms	Private security agencies engaged in the business of watching, guarding or protecting premises, property or persons.
Providers of private online lottery, mail order lotteries and sweepstakes	Any platform, website, mobile app offering forms of gambling that involves the drawing of numbers at random for a prize, scratch cards, online/offline instant win games such as sweepstakes (i.e. contest where a prize or prizes may be awarded to a winner).
Resellers of high value products	Where value cannot be derived from a registered quality inspection or certificate (e.g. watches, game cards, limited edition sneakers).
Sale of live animals	This includes, but is not limited to, breeding e.g. dog breeding and the sale of puppies). Includes the sale of insects, animal parts, blood, fluids.
Sending Aggregators (upstream) / Nested flows	A payment service provider that offers its payments services to another financial institution for the facilitation of payments for their underlying customers.
Ticket & gift cards sellers	Reselling tickets to events or concerts. Commercialising gift cards from well-known brands.
Trading (binary options, CFD, etc) for retail customers (as opposed to institutional investors)	Financial derivatives trading. Fixed-odds betting. Betting on whether an event will happen or not.
Travel Agents/Companies	National and/or international
Used automobile dealers and sellers of used car parts (online or physical)	Including businesses who disassemble automobiles, boats, or airplanes, for the purposes of selling them for used parts.
Virtual Currencies / Crypto Asset / Digital Asset firms	Persons engaged in exchange services between virtual currencies and fiat currencies, or in the virtual assets economy (exchanges; FX signals providers; cryptocurrency mining services, crypto mining products. Unlicenced facilitation of security tokens (e.g. tokens that have characteristics akin to traditional instruments like shares, debentures or units in a collective investment scheme). Offering services allowing the conversion of crypto <> fiat with a specific purpose (e.g. topping up a prepaid card). Accepting virtual currencies / crypto assets from third parties (usually the company’s customers) to finance their transactions (i.e. business payments). A company that leverages stablecoins for its own treasury purposes is not considered as falling under the definition of Regulated/Licensed Virtual Currencies / Crypto Asset /Digital Asset firms.

Last modified: July 21, 2026