Intelligence Module
Catch negative press before the scheme does.
The first time you hear a merchant is in the news should not be from a scheme finding. Kenal AURA runs continuous adverse media screening on every merchant and surfaces each signal with a signal type, risk score, BRAM family mapping, and the underlying articles.
How it works
Screen on a cadence
Every merchant is screened on a configurable cadence against open-web sources. Analysts can also trigger a manual screen at any time from the merchant profile.
Classify the signal
Hits are classified by signal type, scored for reputational and compliance risk, and mapped to the BRAM family they implicate. Each signal is backed by the source articles that triggered it.
Triage with evidence
Analysts dismiss false positives with a required reason or route confirmed hits into the case queue. Dismissals are retained in the audit trail so the decision can be defended later.
Adverse Media
2 signalsNews and media coverage monitored for reputational and compliance risks.
News coverage alleges unlicensed sale of prescription medication on merchant site, flagged by a consumer-protection watchdog.
Regional news report alleges director operates multiple shadow storefronts funneling transactions through the declared merchant account.
Signal types that match compliance taxonomy
Signals are typed, not free-form. BRAM violation, regulatory action, sanctions listing, fraud accusation, money laundering, bankruptcy, and negative press each get their own label and severity. That means queries like 'show me every merchant with a fraud accusation in the last 90 days' are one filter, not a spreadsheet exercise.
A risk score you can sort and filter on
Every signal carries a numeric risk score. High-severity hits are routed to the top of the queue. Low-severity mentions are dampened so analysts are not drowning in unrelated same-name noise.
BRAM family mapping
Each adverse media signal is mapped to the BRAM family it implicates. A news article alleging unlicensed pharmaceutical sales maps to the unlicensed pharmacy family. That connection makes the downstream compliance workflow mechanical. The same family labels used in scan-side classification show up in adverse media too.
Dismissals leave an audit trail
False positives (a different company with the same name, stale articles, retracted coverage) can be dismissed with a required reason. Dismissed signals stay on the record so analyst decisions are defensible and repeat dismissals can be pattern-detected.
Frequently asked questions
- Does the screening hit public news sources or paid databases?
- Open-web sources by default. The platform can be extended to hit paid sanctions and PEP databases via configuration when the acquirer has a contract in place, with the results normalized into the same signal shape.
- How does the platform handle name collisions?
- Signals are surfaced with source articles attached. Analysts can dismiss obvious same-name collisions with a required reason. Persistent false-positive patterns can be suppressed at the rule level per merchant so the noise does not come back each cycle.
- Can the cadence be tuned per risk tier?
- Yes. High-risk merchants can be screened daily. Standard-risk merchants weekly or monthly. Every run is logged so the cadence is auditable.
- Does this cover directors as well as merchants?
- Adverse media screening runs against the merchant and the declared controlling persons. A signal against a director surfaces on the merchant record with the director attribution, so due diligence on the person carries through to the portfolio view.