Sub-merchant KYB and monitoring
at payfac cadence
Payfacs ride on a sponsor acquirer, but the real operational load is the sub-merchant book. Kenal AURA runs onboarding KYB, ongoing monitoring, drift detection, and case management across the whole sub-merchant portfolio, without adding a second operations team.
Summary
Kenal AURA is the merchant lifecycle risk operations platform for payment facilitators. Bulk-onboard sub-merchants, run director eKYC with face match, verify company registration against SSM Live, and keep every sub-merchant under continuous web monitoring on the cadence that matches its risk tier.
Onboarding at payfac cadence
Payfacs sign dozens of sub-merchants a week. Kenal AURA bulk-ingests the portfolio via CSV, runs company verification against SSM Live for Malaysian sub-merchants, runs director eKYC with selfie and face match, and produces evidence bundles keyed to each onboarding case. No one-at-a-time form filling, no side spreadsheets.
Continuous monitoring at the sub-merchant level
Once onboarded, every sub-merchant sits under continuous web change detection, pinned-page drift watching on its policy pages, and MCC drift detection against the declared category. A flat sub-merchant book is not a tagging exercise. Each sub-merchant is a first-class monitored entity.
Evidence the sponsor acquirer can audit
The sponsor acquirer needs to know the payfac is holding up its end of the monitoring obligation. Every scan produces timestamped evidence, every case carries structured resolution codes, and audit exports can be filtered to the sub-merchant book the sponsor is asking about.
One operating layer for a fragmented book
Sub-merchant portfolios are noisy: short-lived sellers, seasonal swings, high merchant turnover. Kenal AURA's SLA-governed case management, severity queues, and structured resolution codes turn that noise into an operating rhythm one compliance lead can run.
Modules that power this
Director eKYC
Selfie, MyKad, and face similarity scoring for every controlling person on every sub-merchant.
Learn moreSource Verification
SSM Live company lookup and director verification pulled directly from the authoritative source.
Learn moreContinuous Monitoring Cadence
Configurable scan frequency per sub-merchant risk tier.
Learn moreInvestigation Workflows
SLA-governed case management with structured resolution reason codes.
Learn moreCompliance Reporting and Evidence
Evidence packages sized for sponsor acquirer audits, not ad hoc screenshots.
Learn moreEntity Discovery
Public-web sweep for undeclared URLs and laundering fronts across the sub-merchant book.
Learn moreFrequently asked questions
- We ride on a sponsor acquirer. Why do we need monitoring software?
- The sponsor acquirer is still accountable to the card scheme, and that accountability flows back to the payfac through the contract. Most sponsors now expect the payfac to run its own monitoring operation and produce evidence on demand. Kenal AURA gives you the monitoring and evidence layer without building it in-house.
- Can it handle thousands of sub-merchants?
- Yes. Sub-merchants are a first-class entity in Kenal AURA, and bulk CSV upload is the supported path for onboarding existing books at scale. Scan cadence is tiered (high-risk sub-merchants run daily, standard retail can run weekly or monthly) so the scan budget stays proportional to the risk profile.
- What KYB data sources does it pull?
- For Malaysian sub-merchants, SSM Live e-Info is the primary source for company status, directors, shareholders, and registered address. Director eKYC captures selfie, MyKad (or passport), and a face similarity score against the document photo. Adverse media screening runs continuously against news, blogs, and watchlists.
- Where does our data live?
- Production runs on a multi-cloud regional footprint: AWS Malaysia (ap-southeast-5) and GCP Singapore (asia-southeast1). Each payfac tenant is placed on the regional cloud that meets its country's data residency requirement. Tenant isolation is row-scoped, so another payfac on the platform cannot read your sub-merchant book.