Merchant Onboarding Risk Best Practices
Worldpay for Platforms and its associate processors adhere to industry-standard best practices for reviewing and onboarding Merchants. Some checks included in our screening process are:
IRS Employer Identification Number (EIN), Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), and Legal Name Validations required for 1099k reporting purposes.
Know Your Customer (KYC) and Know Your Business (KYB) checks.
Sanctions screening against OFAC and other watchlists.
Screening against Mastercard MATCH file.
Non-profit entity status verification.
To comply with the onboarding review process and completion of the checks above, data integrity and accuracy of the following data fields are vital to avoid unnecessary pends or account holds within the Platform or its associate processor.
Ensure an optimal onboarding experience and avoid merchant-of-record (MOR) accounts being pended for manual review with guidance for each risk area.
Business Information
To ensure smooth and accurate onboarding, it's essential to provide detailed business information. This includes the legal business name, DBA statement descriptor, taxpayer identification number (TIN) type and number, business type, contact fields, business address, country, industry, business established date, average transaction amount, annual processing volume, website, and business phone number.
Each of these fields helps verify your legal business entity’s information:
Legal Business Name: Input the business IRS legal filing name. Ensure the legal business name entered matches the name registered with the secretary of state and the IRS. For accuracy, Merchants should refer to form SS-4 or tax filings obtained from the IRS (or their regional government tax authority).
DBA – Statement Descriptor: Optional, but recommended, input the name that will appear on the end customer statements when payments are made.
Note
The legal business name is used as the default for this field if no DBA is entered.
TIN Type: Select either SSN (Social Security Number), EIN (employer identification numbers), or other for the TIN type dropdown. EIN is the most common type, which is the employee identification number, even if the business does not have employees, issued by the IRS.
TIN or EIN: Input the 9-digit identification number issued by the IRS for the type of taxpayer identification number selected above.
Business Type: Input the business type from the following options:
Sole Proprietor: Private, not publicly traded.
Corporation: Private, not publicly traded.
Corporation: Public, publicly traded.
LLC: Private, not publicly traded.
Partner: Private, not publicly traded.
Non-profit: Public
Government: Public
Contact Fields: Input the MOR business phone number, business email, business website, and customer service phone number.
Business Address: Input the MOR physical business address, city, state, and zip code. P.O. Box addresses are not acceptable for any entity type.
Country: Input the country of residence. Currently, acceptable countries are the United States or Canada, if approved.
Industry: Select the industry the merchant of record is classified under and processes for.
Business Established Date: Input the date the business was established.
Average Transaction Amount: Input the average processing transaction amount. This is the average dollar amount of one transaction or payment made by a customer.
Annual Processing Volume: Input the estimated processing volume for transactions to be processed through Payrix Pro for the merchant for the year. This is the estimated dollar amount of the total annual payment volume for e-commerce and terminals.
Website: Ensure the merchant website URL is provided. This is required to approve eCommerce Merchants. If no website exists, enter http://nowebsite.com.
Business phone: Ensure a 10-digit phone number is entered with no leading country calling code because a leading country calling code can cause boarding failures.
Example:
Do: 800-111-1111
Don’t: 1-800-111-1111
Business Owner Information
Accurate business ownership information is vital for compliance and verification purposes. This section requires details about owners' beneficial ownership, significant responsibility, first and last names, and other relevant information. Ensuring all required information is entered correctly helps prevent boarding failures and maintains regulatory compliance.
Each of these fields helps verify your business entity’s owners' information:
Beneficial Ownership: Ensure that all required beneficial ownership information is entered for all owners with 25% or more ownership interest in the business.
Significant Responsibility: Input the numerical value of the ownership percentage that the owner holds for this business into the Ownership % textbox.
Government entities must be 0%.
All other entities, even nonprofits, must list at least 1%.
Important!
If at least 1% is not included, the account will fail auto-boarding.
First and Last Name: Input the owner’s First Name, Middle Name (optional), Last Name, Phone Number, Email Address, Country of Origin, Date of Birth, and Business Title into the text boxes in the Owner Information section.
Social Security Number (SSN): Ensure accurate SSN is entered.
Business Title (Principal's Title): Ensure the individual’s professional title is entered. Using the ampersand character (&) in this field can result in boarding failure.
Individual’s Address: In the Owner Address section, input the owner’s physical residential address, city, state, and zip code. P.O. Box addresses are not acceptable.
Note
For public companies, the business address can be used instead of the individual’s address.
Primary Owner: Ensure a primary owner is designated (even if entering information for only one individual).
Individual Phone: Ensure a 10-digit phone number is entered with no leading country calling code.
Account Information
Providing platform account information is necessary for establishing and maintaining a Merchant account.
Each of these fields helps verify your Merchant’s compliance on the platform:
Established Date: Ensure an Established Date is entered for when the account was created on the platform. This is required for all Merchants boarding to WorldPay and Vantiv Core.
Terms and Conditions Version: Ensure the agreed and signed version of the Terms and Conditions is uploaded.
501(c)(3) Non-Profit Merchants
In addition to the standard risk checks and reviews performed with standard Merchant boarding, the Platform’s underwriters perform a check for 501(c)(3) status verification using a third-party vendor.
The specific 501(c)(3) entity designation for any executive, manager, volunteer, or generally anyone with signing power, a 1% minimum ownership stake in the non-profit business listed, and control over the organization's payment processing is called a “Control Prong”. The following information for at least one Control Prong is required to board the non-profit Merchant successfully:
First and Last Name
Physical Personal Address or Business Address (no PO Box), based on the nature of the entity’s business
Social Security Number
Date of Birth
Professional Title (Using the ampersand character (&) in this field can result in boarding failure.)
For complete merchant onboarding information, see the Merchant Onboarding Risk Guide.