In the card-not-present world, merchant behavior can shift overnight, often without warning. Sometimes innocently, sometimes with big consequences for risk exposure. When the shift happens outside your line of sight, you can’t manage or mitigate it.

That’s why forward-thinking acquirers and PSPs are moving beyond static KYB files and building merchant intelligence directly into the transaction flow. Instead of waiting for trouble to appear in chargebacks or regulatory audits, they monitor merchant activity in real time, using automation, anomaly detection, and dynamic data feeds to spot red flags before they snowball into losses.

From merchant onboarding to merchant surveillance

It’s no longer enough to trust merchants at onboarding. The new normal is continuous verification, powered by a live feedback loop between:

• KYB/onboarding data (who the merchant claims to be)
• Transaction-level behaviour (what’s actually happening in their business)
• Real-time anomaly detection (what’s changing, or not adding up).

This embedded layer of merchant intelligence instantly surfaces early warning signs such as:

• Sudden descriptor edits (are they masking a new business activity?)
• Unexplained sales spikes (is this growth or fraud?)
• Geographic anomalies (does the traffic align with the merchant’s footprint?).

With these insights in hand, PSPs and acquirers act before fraud volumes rise, before regulators intervene, and long before reputational damage comes.

It’s not just risk—It’s revenue protection.

Continuous merchant monitoring is about more than risk management or compliance box-ticking. It’s also a powerful commercial lever for PSPs looking to:

✅ Detect and prevent hidden risk and forced attrition

✅ Optimise pricing based on live merchant behaviour

✅ Capture upsell and cross-sell opportunities from real-time volume trends

✅ Enhance trust with sponsor banks and card schemes

In a market where margins are tight and reputations fragile, this intelligence layer becomes a competitive differentiator, not just a safety net.

Trust is good. Instant verification is better.

The payments market is moving away from one-off reviews and toward ongoing oversight. Merchant intelligence works best when it’s built into the transaction flow, not layered on top as an afterthought.

Discover how Maksu brings real-time merchant intelligence and smarter, more affordable online payments – so online businesses can stay ahead of risk and grow with confidence.