Category: Expert Perspectives | Page 3

High-risk Trends Series: Fraud and Scams

By lowering the barriers to entry into the payments system for many legitimate merchants, the payment facilitator model potentially becomes attractive to bad actors as well. This means that payment facilitators have to stay well-informed about the biggest risks to their own portfolios, so they can remain vigilant in protecting them.

This week, we continue an occasional series on the high-risk trends that are facing payment facilitators with a look at recent frauds and scams.

High-risk Trends Series: Problematic Products

Dealing with high-risk portfolios adds complexity to a PF’s compliance efforts. This week, we begin an occasional series on the trends that are facing payment facilitators operating in the high-risk space.

Payment Facilitators and PCI: “Everybody Has to Start Somewhere”

An organization’s PCI scope – the components of its business that need to be included in an assessment – can have a dramatic impact on the costs for that company to comply with the security standard’s requirements. According to Chris Bucolo, that’s the fundamental reason payment facilitators need to “engage early.”

Merchant Settlement: Pros and Cons of Handling the Funds When You’re a PF

Since its inception, the payment facilitator model has been built on improving the client experience. Reducing and even eliminating onboarding delays to get merchants up and processing payments quickly is a hallmark of the business.

Money Transmission in the Payment Facilitator Model

The payment facilitator model continues to grow in popularity in the merchant acquiring space as a way to board merchants quickly and with minimal friction. While there are many benefits to this model, payment facilitators and their sponsoring banks and processors should be aware of the potential money transmission risks.

Expert Perspective: How Scary is Becoming a Payfac, Really?

For software vendors and others considering becoming payment facilitators, risk is understandably a top concern. So, for our ongoing series about the factors that go into deciding whether to become a PF, we ask experts a fundamental pair of questions: where does the risk come from, and how bad is it?

Healthcare PF InstaMed Counters Consumer Confusion

Nearly two-thirds of consumers would consider switching to a different healthcare provider based on their payments experience.

That’s potentially a sobering statistic to people in the healthcare industry. But it’s one that InstaMed – as a healthcare payments network and particularly as a payment facilitator – feels well positioned to address.

Frictionless Underwriting: Worth the Risk?

While controlling access to the payments system is critical, the legacy system in place to do so was overkill for many players. To accept electronic payments, even the smallest merchant had to complete the same applications and undergo the same scrutiny as the big guys. Enter frictionless underwriting.

Part II: You, Me, and Everyone You Know – The Impact of FinCEN’s Beneficial Ownership Requirements

In part I of this series, we discussed the impact of the beneficial ownership rule on banks and their payment facilitator relationships. In this installment we discuss how the beneficial ownership rules apply to a bank acting as an originating depository financial institution for Automated Clearing House (ACH) transactions and its relationships with Originators, Third-Party Service Providers, and Third-Party Senders.

You, Me, and Everyone You Know – The Impact of FinCEN’s Beneficial Ownership Requirements

If you’re a payment facilitator, how much do you currently know about the owners of your sub-merchant customers? If you’re a processor, how much do you know about the owners of your payment facilitator customer’s sub-merchant customers? And if you’re a bank, how much do you know about the owners of your processor customer’s payment facilitator customer’s sub-merchant customers (who are, technically, also your customers)?