Underwriting in the payments industry is the process of assessing and verifying potential customers – including adherence to banking, brand, and governmental rules – to protect consumers from entities that are wanting to engage in fraud or other illegal activities by accepting credit card transactions. This is essential to maintaining a safe payments ecosystem to safeguard everyone’s money and well-being. Before a payment facilitator or other payments company can onboard a new customer (referred to as a merchant) to allow them to begin accepting electronic payments, they need to first ensure that the merchant is a legitimate business that does not engage in any sort of illegal activity.