At the championship level, winning sports teams are carefully constructed—each athlete hand-selected based on their physical ability, past athletic achievements, and overall reputation. This process of player evaluation has created sports dynasties like Brazil’s national football team, who won back-to-back World Cups in 1958 and 1962, before winning a third in 1970.
What if you could strategically build your merchant portfolio the same way Brazil constructed one of the most dominant sports teams in history? Good news, you can.
Championship Teams Do Their Research
For payment acquirers, it all starts with the application process where the merchant discloses information about themselves and their business. While you hope they are truthful, you can’t always trust that the merchant is giving complete and accurate information. To remain compliant with bankcard rules, you must perform proper Know Your Customer (KYC) due diligence before placing that merchant in your portfolio.
From the player signing perspective, you already know if the athlete has a bad knee, failed basic math, and drives a white Mercedes before he even steps foot on your field. And, that’s just the tip of the iceberg in terms of data checks. Those red flags and details need to be uncovered immediately if they want to perform at the championship-caliber. The same goes for merchant acquirers. Each merchant in a winning portfolio must go through a rigorous background check before boarding. This is where Know Your Customer (KYC) due diligence comes into play.
KYC research involves collecting reams of data from trusted sources to validate the merchant application. Done manually, it can take hours to research a single merchant, and even then, human error can miss critical information and red flags.
Whether your organization is big or small, automating your KYC data collection will provide virtually instant and overwhelming ROI, allowing your underwriters to redirect their time from manually researching KYC data to making critical underwriting decisions.
Setting The Standard
As a coach, it’s important that you understand your strengths and weaknesses, and identify precisely which players you are looking to recruit. Similarly, as a merchant acquirer, you must define the types of merchants you are looking to board and clearly understand your risk tolerance.
Unfortunately, there is no formula for defining risk tolerance, which is more art than science. From a business point of view, make sure that the merchant’s business matches up to the verticals and risk levels you have targeted to service. For example, if a vitamin store turns out to be a CBD merchant—and you don’t service CBD—then you certainly want to find that out before you approve them.
Join us as we kick off our webinar series—KYC Beginner to Pro for Merchant Acquirers—and learn how to build a winning merchant portfolio.
The series covers:
- Know Your Customer: Anatomy of a Bad Actor
- Automated KYC: ROI You Can’t Afford to Ignore
- How to Pick a KYC Automation Vendor That’s Right For You
Register here: https://www.g2llc.com/kyc-beginner-to-pro-series/
