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Kenal

For payment companies and acquirers

Onboard merchants without a site visit and monitor them every day against card-scheme rules.

Last updated

Kenal Business on a phone: a company's SSM certificate of incorporation and company profile uploaded and checked
Kenal Business on a phone: the authorised signatory's identity verified for business transactions

Kenal for payments is a merchant onboarding and monitoring service that lets acquirers and payment facilitators verify a merchant, its signatories and its premises without a site visit, then re-check every merchant daily against card-scheme rules with the evidence attached.

What you can do with Kenal

Example: merchant onboarding and monitoring

A merchant signs up online, is approved the same day and is watched every day after that.

  1. Step 1: Kenal Business

    The merchant is checked against the SSM registry, each authorised signatory passes eKYC and the premises are audited through a short geotagged video walkthrough recorded in the app.

  2. Step 2: Kenal Aura

    From day one, the merchant's website, media and sanctions exposure are re-checked daily against Mastercard and Visa rules, and drift from the declared MCC is flagged.

Your risk team works one queue, and every flag carries the screenshot, source and rule that raised it.

Built for your regulator

Merchant risk is judged by your regulator and by the card schemes. We build to both.

BNM Merchant Acquiring policy
Merchant due diligence at onboarding and ongoing monitoring afterwards, designed to the policy, with each check kept as evidence.
Mastercard monitoring rules (BRAM)
Merchant websites and content classified against Mastercard's Business Risk Assessment and Mitigation categories.
Visa integrity risk rules
Prohibited and high-risk content, undeclared URLs and MCC drift flagged against Visa's merchant integrity requirements.

We describe what we build to. Approval of your programme rests with you and your regulator. Read more on security at Kenal.

Questions we hear

How can acquirers onboard merchants without a site visit?

Kenal Business replaces the site visit with a short geotagged video walkthrough of the premises, recorded in the app. It also checks the company against the SSM registry, verifies every authorised signatory with Kenal eKYC and screens the business against AML, PEP and sanctions lists. A merchant can finish onboarding in about 10 minutes, and your reviewers see all the evidence in one case.

How does Kenal Aura help with Mastercard BRAM and Visa rules?

Kenal Aura re-checks each merchant's website, media and sanctions exposure every day and classifies what it finds against Mastercard BRAM categories and Visa merchant integrity rules. It flags content that drifts from the declared merchant category code, undeclared URLs and prohibited products. Each flag carries the screenshot, source and rule, so your team can act on evidence rather than a score alone.

Does Kenal Aura replace our existing merchant risk team?

No. Kenal Aura does the daily checking so your analysts spend their time on decisions. It watches every merchant in your portfolio, ranks what needs attention and puts the evidence in a single review queue. Your team still decides whether to request information, restrict or terminate a merchant, and every decision is recorded against the flag that prompted it.

Talk to our payments team

Bring your merchant onboarding checklist or your monitoring backlog. We will show you both workflows live.