The Automated Risk-Based Scorecard and How it Works

Without merchants, payment processors might as well close up shop; they have no reason to be in business.  That’s why crafting a satisfactory merchant experience is vital and one of the most effective ways payment processors can ensure they delight their merchants and maintain a steady stream of merchant applications.

Merchant experience is determined by two things: the merchant application and the merchant onboarding process. It is crucial to optimize these processes for both your merchants and employees. In this age of innovation and technology, merchants expect a streamlined process and shorter approval times. A smoother merchant experience means not only an automated, easier process but also a faster and more accurate one. 

Optimizing the merchant experience ultimately means more business, less potential risk, and happier merchants and employees.  Keep reading to learn more about best practices to optimize your merchant’s experiences.

Best Practices for a Superior Merchant Experience

Since it is of the utmost importance to properly identify risk both before and during a merchant’s entire tenure with your company, looking for the most effective and efficient solutions is of paramount importance.  The most effective way your company can identify risk in your merchant application process is to leverage software solutions that can automatically do the heavy lifting. 

Seizing the benefits of modern innovation can lead to a more accurate risk evaluation, faster denial or approval process, and easier scalability options. Often, the best technology solutions work in tandem with others. For example, the Agreement Express Merchant ScanXpress software identifies risk during the merchant application process and integrates with KYC Sitescan and Verisk Financial, both software solutions that also help protect businesses from risky merchants. 

Preboarding KYC checks are a mere snapshot in time, not showing the complete picture of what businesses need to be protected from. Continuous monitoring is vital throughout a merchant’s lifecycle, helping payment processors identify potential transaction laundering and ensure ongoing compliance with regulatory and card network rules. This ongoing transparency is one of the most important aspects as businesses begin taking on more merchants. 

It is important that businesses not fall behind the digital transformation curve. Beginning to digitize processes that were previously done by hand is critical as innovation becomes top-of-mind for many companies. One of the newest innovations on the market is an automated risk scorecard generated to show clearly and accurately just how risky a merchant would be to acquire. This technology can optimize both merchant experience and employee efficiency.

The Agreement Express Risk Scorecard

The key to a good merchant experience is making sure you have a merchant application and onboarding process that is as smooth for your clients as it is compliant and risk-averse for you.

One of the most effective methods of streamlining and upgrading these crucial processes is the Agreement Express automated risk scorecard. This highly configurable software solution scales your business, automates data entry, and generates custom checklists for optimal risk avoidance.

This risk scorecard is entirely configurable for your unique needs and the scorecard’s criteria can be changed as you and your merchant and sub-merchants businesses grow. Not only can this scorecard easily flex to meet your needs, but companies have the potential to build a customizable automated risk scorecard in as little as 10 minutes. Because the Agreement Express technology stores data and utilizes machine learning to analyze this data, it eliminates the need for development resources to build and adapt new scorecards as a business evolves. In turn, you spend less time on simple tasks, and more time on critical, high-level decisions.

As your business acquires more merchants of varying types, The Agreement Express risk scorecard ensures you can avoid changing your risk evaluation processes for every new merchant. Instead, the Agreement Express automated risk scorecard changes to fit your needs. It allows you to build multiple types of risk scorecards and support multiple merchant application models, without changing the process on your end for every new merchant or partner.

As a part of its host of customizable features, the automated risk scorecard also generates a custom checklist that makes evaluating risk much easier. Since risk factors are unique to every merchant, having a checklist that is fitted to the type of merchant you’re evaluating is key to a seamless onboarding and underwriting experience. With the potential to evaluate and onboard merchants in less than 10 minutes, the Agreement Express automated risk scorecard can lead your business to more revenue, faster.

All of this customization and efficiency comes with a reduction in error and risk Since data entry with the risk scorecard is automatic, more time is available for underwriters to make decisions that need a more complex approach. The arduous, mistake-ridden process that usually defines manual risk analyses is now easily managed by our software, leaving you with a wealth of well-documented data and synthesized insights so you can make the final decision.

The Bottom Line

Whether you’re ready or not, the age of digital transformation is here. And your chance to use the most innovative merchant experience tool is here. Schedule a demo of the Agreement Express risk scorecard today.

Risk Scorecard FAQs

What is merchant processing?

Merchant processing is the entire process of accepting, processing, and settling payment transactions for merchants. It is the primary duty of any payment facilitator.

What is merchant monitoring? Is that a part of the merchant experience?

Merchant monitoring is an excellent way to avoid risk after a merchant gets approved. It is the process of continuously keeping an eye on the risk status of merchants. It is not directly a part of the merchant experience, seeing as it occurs in the background as a safety measure after the application and onboarding processes.