Merchant Acquirer Compliance for Reporting Entities
Onboarding and settling for merchants puts all of their risk squarely on your own books. We help merchant acquirers meet the compliance duties that come with owning the merchant relationship across Canada.
The Merchant Relationship Is Your Risk
As an acquirer, you bring merchants into the payment system and settle their funds, which makes their conduct your exposure. Weak onboarding or thin oversight can leave you carrying the risk of a merchant you never understood. We help you build the checks and monitoring that keep that risk controlled from the first application onward.
From Onboarding to Settlement
Acquirer compliance runs the length of the merchant lifecycle. You need to verify and underwrite merchants at onboarding, watch their activity across your book, and handle settlement soundly, all while meeting your own AML duties. We help you build compliance across that whole journey, so every merchant is properly checked, monitored, and settled without exposing your business.
Merchant Onboarding
We build the verification and underwriting your merchant onboarding actually requires.
Merchant Monitoring
We build monitoring that watches merchant activity across your whole book.
Risk Management
We help you manage and price the compliance risk each merchant carries.
AML Controls
We build the screening, records, and reporting your acquiring activity needs.
Ready to Simplify Your Compliance?
Acquirers We Support and Guide
We support merchant acquirers, acquiring banks, payment facilitators, independent sales organisations, and the many other businesses onboarding, underwriting, and settling funds for merchants under the PCMLTFA and Canadian payment regimes.
We support banks with program design, oversight, & regulatory examination readiness.
We help credit unions meet obligations proportionate to their membership and scale.
We handle registration, renewals, reporting, & controls FINTRAC expects from you.
We cover Bank of Canada registration alongside your anti money laundering obligations.
We establish what your wallet activity triggers, then build only what applies.
We build compliance around what your product does, before volumes and questions arrive.
We register virtual currency dealers and build the reporting their activity demands.
We support financial institutions across registration, program build, and reporting duties.
Why Acquirers Choose Our Compliance
Onboarding Sound
We build strong merchant verification and underwriting, so you understand every merchant before you take their risk on.
Book Watched
We build monitoring across your merchant book, so a problem merchant is caught early rather than after the damage.
Risk Owned
We help you manage the merchant risk you carry, so your acquiring book stays sound as it grows.
Serving Acquirers Across Canada
We support merchant acquirers right across the whole of Canada, from Toronto and Montreal to Vancouver and Calgary, and foreign acquirers onboarding Canadian merchants wherever they happen to be based.
Let's Talk About Your Compliance Needs
Schedule a Free Consultation
Whether you’re starting a new MSB or need ongoing AML support, our team responds within one business day.
Merchant Acquirer Questions
Clear answers to the questions acquirers ask most about the compliance obligations of onboarding and settling for merchants in Canada.
What is merchant acquirer compliance?
It is meeting the compliance duties that come with onboarding merchants, monitoring their activity, and settling their funds as an acquirer.
Are we liable for our merchants?
Largely yes. As an acquirer you carry the risk of the merchants you onboard, so their conduct becomes your compliance exposure.
What does merchant onboarding involve?
Verifying and underwriting each merchant, understanding their business and risk, and screening them before you bring them into your book.
How does this differ from processor compliance?
Processor compliance centres on processing transactions. This centres on the merchant relationship, from onboarding and risk to settlement and oversight.
Do we monitor merchants after onboarding?
Yes. Merchant risk continues after onboarding, so you must watch merchant activity across your book for the life of the relationship.