Category: Learn | Page 6

Do You Need to Be a Payment Facilitator, or Are You a PF Wannabe?

If your company is exploring becoming a PF, it is important to understand the relevant drivers behind becoming a PF as well as the impact your decisions have on the operations of your business.

Registering as a PF is not a panacea for making payments easier, and in fact, can be a drain on the resources within your organization.

You already know you want something more than a traditional merchant processing referral relationship. Identifying what you are trying to accomplish with a PF model while analyzing the various options to meet those needs, rather than focusing on simply becoming a PF, is a valuable exercise.

Q&A: The Risks and Benefits of Frictionless Underwriting

The advent of frictionless underwriting turned the payments world on its head. The ability to onboard merchants quickly with a minimum of fuss has enabled small merchants to accept payments more easily, clearing the way for many more to enter the market.

But the practice does have its downside. Lowering barriers to entry into the payments system lowers them for everyone, not just the good guys. With that in mind, PaymentFacilitator.com is beginning a series on the perils and the benefits of frictionless underwriting.

Are APIs Vulnerable? Two Crucial Places PFs Should Focus Now to Help Mitigate Risk

In the payment facilitator world, APIs are everywhere you look. In many cases, they’re the mechanism that allows the system to work – enabling payments infrastructure to integrate with other functions in a way that solves businesses’ unique problems.

So not surprisingly, API security is a hot topic. Does the use of APIs leave merchants more vulnerable to fraud? What are the special security considerations?

Take A Deep Breath PFs, Beneficial Ownership Rule Is Not So Bad

First things first: In our opinion, the Treasury’s May 11 FinCEN rules are going to impact ISOs and Payment Facilitators alike, in that banks are going to make them follow these new rules.

Although the rule does not speak to ISOs or PFs underwriting merchants or submerchants, we fully believe if you are required to do KYC now — and ISOs and PFs are required to do KYC now — they will be required to do the increased KYC under the new rules.