What Is the Payment Facilitator Model?

Many software companies are choosing to enable their merchant customers to accept payments through their platform. It’s an appealing way to increase revenue and provide their customers with a complete software and payments experience. For companies that choose to own the payments function in-house, the process involves becoming what’s known in the payments industry as a payment facilitator.

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What is Frictionless Underwriting?

Few tech-enabled developments in recent years are as revolutionary to the merchant experience as the birth of frictionless underwriting – a key characteristic of the payment facilitator model. But what does it involve?

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PCI and Payment Facilitation: What are PFs Responsible For?

Companies that choose to integrate payments into their B2B software offerings must consider risk from a number of perspectives. This week, we report on some of the fundamental issues and decision points behind payment facilitators’ relationship with the industry data security standard.

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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?

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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.

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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)?

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Supplement KYC Efforts Using Corporate Registration Research

As Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations become increasingly critical in the underwriting process, payment facilitators may seek to better understand high-risk merchants by collecting information separate from what is provided by the applicants themselves. Corporate registration records offer reliable, useful data that may help to paint a more complete picture than application information alone. Knowing where to look and what to look for may lead to more effective Customer Due Diligence (CDD) or Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD) efforts.

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