The health crisis that has hit the world recently has impacted various geographies and industries and, of course, the payment business, which has undergone an extraordinary change. Consumers’ purchasing habits have changed to online shopping for goods and services. This has led to the need for speedier merchant onboarding and better ongoing monitoring to decrease the risk of fraud and ensure compliance with merchants who acquire.
Impact of merchant onboarding on a business
In the process of taking on the new business, automation becomes essential for an easy change from the earlier lengthy process to a smoother and speedier merchant onboarding process that minimizes the amount of friction for new merchants. What steps can the merchant acquirers take to ensure they’re prepared to face the new challenges of altering the customer experience while limiting the risk?
Risk Management
Merchant onboarding presents payment companies with the difficult task of balancing to grow their portfolios without increasing the risk of being a victim of fraud. Taking on new merchants is crucial, but this should not be without proper risk assessment. The reason is that a business that approves fraudulent transactions is more likely to cause damage to your financial results than good. Numerous companies had learned this fact the hard way when manual processes were skipped or expedited to approve swiftly.
This is the place where software can be of great benefit immediately. In a manual process, approvals must go through an ordered process. Each stage must be approved before the next one can take place. With the appropriate technology, it’s possible to create an account as a part of the risk assessment process or even before. Merchants can quickly complete merchant onboarding without removing the risk assessment entirely. The quicker the process is, the faster the portfolio will grow.
Particularly, digital merchant onboarding could assist companies in balancing this process at every stage in the procedure, which is outlined in the following sections:
Merchant Application
First step: to complete the first step, which is the. Manual systems require merchants to record their details on paper forms repeatedly. This can be frustrating and drains time for the customer and the payment teams, who must examine every one of them. Using digital platform forms can automatically fill the applicant’s information when appropriate, saving time and minimizing the chance of human mistakes.
Similar to paper applications, paper-based ones aren’t always easy to navigate. Digital interfaces can provide useful hints or interactive instructions to ensure that each merchant onboarding is completed properly. Certain software applications can determine if a business takes too long to complete one section and ask for help. The data patterns regarding these delays could be utilized to improve filling out the form. This helps everyone save time and improves the user experience for applicants. Additionally, a digital platform could be created to identify abandoned applications and send merchants an automated reminder to finish them, making them more conversion-friendly.
Check Your Customer’s Information
After an application has been submitted, it’s on the company that processes payments to confirm the application. If you’ve improved your merchant onboarding process, it could lead to an increase in applications. To accommodate the increase, you need to enhance the validation process, known as the “Know Your Customer” (KYC) procedure. KYC requirements differ based on local laws but typically involve confirming a company’s or tax identification number and confirming that the business’s address is listed.
With a digital merchant onboarding process, most confirmation requirements can be asked at the time of application and then automatically verified using the software. Sharing the bank account and sales turnover information on the application form will increase verification efficiency. Additionally, digital applications can signal that something is not included in the application before making it available for submission. This means that the personnel don’t have to search for mandatory information. They’re liberated from manually verifying more intricate details, which speeds up the verification process and allows for increased merchants that can be included in the portfolio.
Merchant Onboarding & Underwriting
The final step of merchant onboarding is a complete risk assessment to verify underwriting. If done by hand, these procedures are extremely precise and thus reliable, however, at the cost of speed. Since accounts are not allowed to be temporarily suspended until the verification process is completed, any delay in processing could be a source of frustration for merchants and could lead them to look elsewhere for quicker service. However, without proper vetting, the payment processors risk accepting fraudulent applications.
Every company can customize these programs according to their specific market and current trends in high-risk behaviour. This helps protect against the most obvious fraudulent attempts without wasting resources or slowing the merchant experience. The more complicated rules and cases can be assigned to employees to be reviewed manually to ensure greater security.
Technology
Establishing a partnership with the new business partner is crucial, starting with the best possible beginning. A speedy and efficient automated sign-up process will help to attract prospective merchants to your payment firm. However, if things fail once they’ve signed the contract, all your efforts may be no gain. The most crucial element of the process for onboarding merchants is the speedier setup of the merchant. It allows merchants to quickly implement the technology and equipment they need to accept payment today. Ultimately, this process should be as simple and easy as making an account.
Your new retailer will be a delighted customer if everything is in place to plug and play immediately from the box. If it’s difficult for them to set up and ready for use, they’ll throw it away in the cabinet before it’s used, and your brand’s reputation suffers due to this. Therefore, you must ensure that all of the training and software, as well as other data that the retailer will require for a successful start, is already loaded on or comes to the device, ensuring that the new client has everything they require right away.
Faster Execution
With the rise of e-commerce, the introduction of advanced technologies, and the widespread use of social networks, today’s customers need quick access. This is putting pressure on companies and retailers to be accessible to their customers 24/7 all week long. This requires cooperation with service providers who will assist them in attaining this standard of service. Customers, as well as merchants, do not want to wait for weeks to find a new possible payment service to process an online (or perhaps even in the case of paper) application. They’re hoping to have their account operating within minutes.
The digital Path Forward
The process of onboarding merchants can be risky, But the appropriate digital tools can make the process more efficient and secure for payment service providers. Automating the process reduces the burden of the application process and manual inspection while not replacing dedicated employees. This allows employees to concentrate on the most vital aspects of the process of verification. This lets merchants swiftly move through the process of merchant onboarding, which results in portfolio growth.
Conclusion
Payment is an essential issue for the growth of marketplaces. The merchant onboarding process is essential to the connection between marketplaces and their merchants. Taskmo’s solution is geared toward marketplaces; Taskmo simplifies regulatory constraints and eases contracting for sellers through an automated process for interfaces and processing. In the longer term, it allows platforms to gain access to greater catalogues of merchants and guarantees their expansion.
