Manual reviews may feel safe, but they don’t scale, they slow you down, and they come at a real cost.
At a certain point, payment processors hit a crossroads. They decide to modernize onboarding.
So they create a web form. Maybe add an API. They swap PDFs for web fields and call it digital.
But beneath the interface, the operational rhythm remains unchanged.Applications still land in a queue. A risk analyst reads every file. Compliance checks are completed one by one. Someone is always chasing missing docs, verifying dates, and marking good merchants with the dreaded Pend state.That’s not transformation.
That’s manual labor hiding behind a modern facade.
There was a time when human oversight felt essential. Risk teams wanted control. Compliance demanded it. Underwriters wielded experience with pride. As they should, given they are the police on the block.
But that model stops working as you grow.Every new merchant adds load. Every deal closed ties up resources. Every spike in volume turns your queue into a backlog.Suddenly, your ops team is overwhelmed, merchants are waiting too long, and sales reps spend time on operational tasks.That’s not onboarding. That’s firefighting.
Manual reviews aren’t just slow, they’re expensive.
Merchant drop-off
McKinsey found that 35% of merchants abandon the onboarding process when it’s too slow or unclear.
Operational overhead
Mastercard estimates it costs $250 to onboard a single merchant. Much of that goes to people waiting, chasing, or triple-checking information from disparate data sources.
Staff burnout
Repetitive tasks lead to fatigue, mistakes, and resignations. And when demand spikes, your team backs up just to scrape by.
Compliance risk
Humans make mistakes. One analyst might approve something another wouldn’t. Over time, these inconsistencies attract audit findings.
You treat every merchant the same, regardless of risk.Yet the majority fall clearly within safe thresholds. Reviewing them manually is a poor use of skilled time.Automation can handle:
- Identity checks through KYC/KYB APIs
- Sanctions and watchlist screening
- Device and velocity risk scoring
- Application completion and data enrichment
That frees your analysts to concentrate on risky or strategic cases, the ones that actually need human judgment and generate outsized value.
This isn’t about removing humans. It’s about moving them to where they matter most.Your system handles baseline reviews. Humans step in only when rules are triggered.You set thresholds. You define exception types. You configure workflows.The platform executes. Your team focuses on the outliers.The result?
- Faster decisions
- Better use of expertise
- Consistency
- Scale
“Compliance demands manual review.”
Automation creates audit trails and ensures consistency; better than relying on human memory.
“Our risk profile is too complex.”
Rule engines are flexible. They can encode even nuanced policies and evolve as you do.
“We’re not ready yet.”
Every delayed month adds cost, burnout, and lost revenue. Start small. Automate what’s obvious without integration effort by your IT team. Expand from there.
The ROI of Automating Reviews
- Faster onboarding = more merchant conversions
- Lower cost per approval
- Smoother operations
- Higher employee satisfaction
- Scalable growth
- That’s why leading processors are investing in onboarding automation. Accelerating growth is critical, and the commoditization of payments is the catalyst.
Under a manual model, you’re not catching risk. You’re catching delays.Great underwriters are irreplaceable because they step back, take a complete view of the entity and identity, and provide recommendations that protect all parties. Big picture thinking, or context over content, is the leading trait in successful underwriters.
Manual reviews and business growth starve great underwriters of the time they need to keep being great. The state of control, formed when superstar underwriters had the capacity, today is just an illusion that needs be quashed.
Automation keeps great underwriters in their wheelhouse. As a high performance super-sleuth, looking at context not just content.
If every application in your process still passes through human hands, you’re not running a payments business. You’re running compliance by bullet point.
Automation doesn’t mean less control. It means better use of control. Faster execution. Less risk.
Let us show you how we eliminated 80% of manual reviews and now activate merchants in under 10 minutes
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