This is the final installment in a 3-part series on systematizing merchant risk and compliance programs to better prepare for card-network scrutiny. Read part 1 here and part 2 here.
Merchant acquiring, and e-commerce as an industry, is fraught with risk—but not all risks are obvious. Navigating card scheme rules, local and federal regulations, and best practices developed for your business’ specific risk appetite can be a tangled mess.
As prepared as you may be to navigate these risks, the merchants within your portfolio can inadvertently step out of compliance without knowing it, and more importantly—without notifying you. Comprehensive monitoring of changes to merchant URLs is necessary for identifying merchants who have gone out of compliance with card network rules, whether on purpose or by accident.
Volume is the problem
The first step in effectively monitoring changes to merchant websites is controlling how much information you see.
Websites continually make large numbers of small changes, many of which are due to automated processes associated with maintaining the domain. Generally, these high-volume, automated changes do not represent any risk indicators.
Manual changes to websites are also continuous, high-volume, and represent a wide range of activity, including:
- Product and copy updates
- Blogs, new releases, and other resource materials
- Customer evidence, reviews, logos, and case studies
- Pricing and policy updates
- and more
Staying apprised of all changes is possible but comes at great cost. Manually reviewing minutiae drains resources and distracts teams from more high-value work.
Reduce the noise. Identify real risk. Offload your team.
Automation is key to filtering out irrelevant website updates, but even with the automated changes removed, you’re left with high volumes of hits that land in a gray area requiring human review. So, do you create that automation in-house and hire a team, or do you outsource it?
Efficiently detecting changes to merchant websites is best achieved with an expert partner. Look for:
- Filtering methods for high volume, automated changes.
- Configurable reports to reduce unnecessary alerts.
- Industry knowledge about what changes present the most risk in different industries.
- Expertise to help you action alerts.
Building or partnering with a solution based on these organizing principles will help you stay apprised of your merchants’ activities without overwhelming you with noise. Concise, actionable updates are the key to having timely and direct conversations with both your merchants and the card brands to ensure that you are capitalizing on all opportunities without exposing yourself to unnecessary risk.
Next steps
- Watch our webinar, Future-proofing Merchant Compliance, for a conversation with two industry veterans who talk about how they plan for and respond to card network requests.
- Learn more about our Change Detection solution.
- Need help? Contact us. We’re here to help.