LegitScript Merchant Underwriting
Merchant Risk Solutions
Merchant Underwriting
Underwrite Smarter. Onboard Faster. Grow Safely.
LegitScript Merchant Underwriting, now with Kompliant, pairs AI-powered decisioning with a fully configurable workflow platform, so acquirers can say yes to the right merchants faster, catch risk before it ever touches the portfolio, and expand into high-risk verticals with real confidence.
Merchant Underwriting
Your Platform for KYB, KYC, Fraud Signals, and Decisioning
Most underwriting teams are dealing with fragmented tools and data. The result is higher costs, slower decisions, and audit trails that don’t hold up under scrutiny.
Cut False Positives, Keep the Rigor
Our AI-powered context analysis turns unstructured data into a clear read on merchant signals so your team reviews fewer applications and misses even less.
Underwriting Rules, Set by Your Policy
Configure underwriting logic to your credit and risk policy, your merchant types, and your decisioning thresholds so every review reflects how you actually assess risk and onboard merchants.
Underwriting Decisions in Minutes, Not Days
Stay audit-ready and move as fast as your merchants expect. Get full defensibility, with automated documentation and audit logs.
Get the Flexibility of a Modular Platform
Run only the verifications you need, in the workflow you’ve defined, with the data signals that fit your policy. Supported by a robust API that connects to the systems you already have in place.
Meet the Mastercard MMP Standards
Mastercard requires acquirers to run pre-transaction merchant scans, monitor password-protected areas of merchant websites, and prove continuous oversight across the entire merchant lifecycle.
As a registered Mastercard Merchant Monitoring Program (MMP) provider LegitScript delivers all three, and ensures every risk flag is documented, every decision is defensible, and every audit is ready when you need it.
Get 5 Free Content Scans to see exactly what a Mastercard-compliant Content Scan finds.
Refined Mastercard MATCH Pro Results
LegitScript is a Network Enablement partner for Mastercard MATCH Pro. Our AI-powered context analysis scores Mastercard MATCH Pro results, giving you a high probability or low probability of match.
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LegitScript Merchant Underwriting brings together KYB, KYC, and fraud detection with LegitScript’s proprietary merchant risk signals and automates every verification check against your own policy thresholds so clean applications clear in minutes and every decision comes with a full audit trail.
Know Your Business
Comprehensive KYB Verification
LegitScipt’s KYC and KYB verification tools ensure compliance while reducing fraud. We offer customizable workflows and easy API integrations to streamline data collection and risk management.
- Business Entity Verification
Verify TaxID/name matching to IRS records, and entity identifying information to Secretary of State and other public records. - Risk Analysis
Uncover indicators of risk including bankruptcies, liens, judgements, and criminal/fraudulent activity. - Pre-configured Compliance
Meet all regulatory requirements for KYB to keep your customer portfolio safe.
Know Your Customer
Instant KYC, AML, and Fraud Detection for Beneficial Owners
KYC covers all ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs), consumer credit, and identity signals. While some of the checks are similar to KYB, you can have a separate set of rules for each KYC check, especially when looking at fraud analysis.
- Sanctions Screening
Keep sanctioned, high-risk and politically exposed persons (PEP) out of your portfolios. - Fraud Detection and Risk Indicators
Beneficial Owners undergo fraud filtering through the Mastercard Identity fraud network and Kount payment fraud solutions.
Decision Workflow Automation
Automated Workflow Decisioning – Configured to Your Policy
LegitScript’s decision workflow automation is configured to your credit and risk policy, automating low-complexity decisions and surfacing only the cases that need underwriter judgment.
- Instant approvals for low-complexity cases governed by policy-driven rules
- One consolidated view of evidence for complex cases routed to underwriters
- Only the critical data, surfaced for the decision at hand
- Full defensibility with automated documentation and audit logs
Best-in-class Data Sources
Pre-configured and Integrated With the Industry’s Leading Vendors
Our AI-powered context analysis reformats and standardizes incoming addresses, phone numbers, business names, and more, regardless of the source, to ensure the highest quality data into the system.
- Millions of Entity Records
Access to underlying records on more than 180 million businesses globally, with more than 400 attributes available per location. - Hundreds of Sources
Data verifications to sources including IRS, Secretaries of State, bank records, credit reporting agencies, card networks, and more. - Intelligent Data Processing
We process thousands of data attributes into our AI-powered decisioning engine to process inputs into a defensible decision.
Modern Architecture
Flexibility to Work Your Way
Our modern API architecture integrates seamlessly into your existing workflows and infrastructure, delivering the risk signals and analysis where you need them, without displacing the systems you already own.
Platform
Configure policy thresholds, review flagged cases, and track every decision through a dashboard built for your underwriting team.
API
Push and pull risk signals, decisions, and re-underwriting triggers directly into your existing systems, with no manual data transfer required.
Export every decision as an audit-ready document with data inputs, policy rules applied, and underwriter actions included, ready for sponsor bank and regulator review.
Modular Risk Assessment: More Signals
More Signals for Your Workflow
Get additional capabilities and risk signals for initial merchant scans or as part of your current underwriting process.
Content Scan
Powered by LegitScript’s cutting-edge AI, trained on data vetted and curated by our risk experts, Content Scan makes fast, efficient website reviews a reality for your risk teams. Content Scan meets Mastercard's URL scan requirements.
- Reduce manual website review by upward of 95%.
- Flag BRAM and VIRP violations and other prohibited content.
- Stay audit-ready with downloadable screenshots.
Merchant Match
Powered by years of LegitScript proprietary merchant data and known risk networks, Merchant Match compares merchant details against LegitScript's vast risk dataset to uncover hidden ties to known bad actors before they reach the portfolio.
- Identify connections beyond the merchant URL alone.
- Spot repeat offenders, such as serial transaction launderers.
- Understand each match with clear risk details.
MCC Detection
MCC Detection automates merchant category code assignment, saving underwriters time, reducing manual errors, and minimizing misclassification risks that can lead to card network fines or registration issues.
- Get accurate recommendations with supporting rationale.
- Catch miscoded or high-risk MCCs that require registration.
- Ensure compliant classification from the start.
Adverse Media
LegitScript flags reputational risks by scanning more than 300 million news articles and media sources for negative coverage, giving underwriters a fuller picture of a merchant’s real-world standing before approval.
Your Kompliant login, developer docs, and API reference remain on the Kompliant platform, and nothing you've integrated needs to change.
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Developer Docs
API Reference
Want To Learn More?
Guide
23 pages
Merchant Onboarding and Merchant Monitoring Buyers Guide
Merchant risk management solutions — which ones are right for your company? Compare in-house risk management to third-party solutions and tips for choosing the right provider.
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Guide
24 pages
Smarter Onboarding for Payments Leaders
Is your merchant onboarding keeping up with rapidly changes to risk and competition? Learn how to future-proof your onboarding with our guide.
Webinar
On Demand
Trust Is Getting Harder to Prove: Rethinking Merchant Underwriting in the Age of AI
Leading payment service providers are rethinking onboarding and underwriting in a future undergirded by AI, moving beyond KYC to verify merchant intent, apply risk-based friction, and continuously defend their portfolios. Learn what durable trust models look like in the AI age.
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Mastercard MMP Compliance
LegitScript is one of few companies authorized to deliver Mastercard-recognized merchant monitoring at scale, and the coverage is already built into Merchant Risk Solutions.
See What LegitScript Merchant Underwriting Can Do for You
See our solutions in action. Get a Merchant Underwriting demo, scoped to your portfolio and your risk tolerance.
Frequently Asked Questions
Merchant Underwriting, Your Questions Answered
What is merchant underwriting?
Merchant underwriting is the process an acquirer, ISO, PayFac, or bank uses to evaluate a business before approving it to accept payments. The purpose of merchant underwriting is to verify what the business is, who owns it, and whether it carries risk the acquirer isn’t prepared to take on — then documents that decision for compliance and card network review.
How does merchant underwriting compare to persistent monitoring?
Underwriting is a point-in-time decision made before a merchant is initially approved. Persistent monitoring picks up where underwriting ends, continuously checking approved merchants for new risk as their business, ownership, or online activity evolves. Acquirers need both: underwriting to control who gets in, and monitoring to catch what changes after they're in.
How long does LegitScript Merchant Underwriting take?
Clean applications can clear in minutes, not days or weeks. LegitScript Merchant Underwriting runs KYB and KYC checks automatically against your policy thresholds, so straightforward approvals move immediately and only complex cases are routed to an underwriter for review.
What is the difference between KYB and KYC?
KYC (Know Your Customer) verifies an individual's identity. KYB (Know Your Business) verifies the legitimacy of a company itself, including its registration, ownership structure, and beneficial owners. Merchant underwriting requires both: KYC to confirm the people behind a business, and KYB to confirm the business is real, registered, and not concealing who actually controls it.
What is Mastercard MATCH Pro?
Mastercard MATCH Pro is Mastercard’s database of merchants terminated for cause by another acquirer. Before approving a new merchant, acquirers are required to screen against MATCH Pro to confirm the business hasn't been previously removed from the payment ecosystem for fraud, excessive chargebacks, or other card network violations. LegitScript Merchant Underwriting runs this check automatically as part of the KYB workflow.
What is Mastercard’s Merchant Monitoring Program (MMP)?
Mastercard’s Merchant Monitoring Program (MMP) requires acquirers to screen merchants for Brand Reputation and Misuse (BRAM) violations and transaction laundering, both before onboarding and continuously afterward. Under the standards effective January 1, 2026, acquirers must complete an initial website scan before a merchant’s first transaction, then maintain ongoing monitoring that extends into restricted, members-only areas. LegitScript’s Content Scan module supports the pre-transaction requirement by scanning merchant websites and returning risk intelligence in minutes, while LegitScript Merchant Monitoring combines automation with human expertise to cover password-protected and members-only content.
What do payments companies need to consider before entering high-risk markets?
High-risk verticals can mean high reward, but the compliance stakes are high. Regulations vary by state, country, and even by product type, and they change fast. Before entering any of these markets, you need to understand specific licensing requirements, card network rules, and prohibited-merchant categories that apply, as well as how to tell a compliant merchant from one that only looks compliant on paper.
Engage with our Risk & Policy Advisory service, designed for organizations wanting to operate in regulated, high-risk, or sensitive markets. This includes e-commerce marketplaces, social media platforms, advertising platforms, payment service providers, acquiring banks, sponsor banks, and financial institutions seeking to expand safely while maintaining effective risk management and compliance programs. Our research and legal team has the expertise and up-to-date regulatory insights to shape your workflow before entering these markets.
I'm not ready to fully commit to a Merchant Risk Solutions provider. What are some fast ways to better understand your offerings?
We offer two fast and free ways to see what LegitScript can find in your portfolio right now.
Try Content Scan: Give us five merchant URLs, and we'll show you the risk our technology detects, no strings attached.
Get a more in-depth free Merchant Monitoring pilot: Our analysts will review your merchants and show you the risk in your actual portfolio before you decide on anything. Get started here.