Onboarding and verification
Learn how to onboard your merchants and get them verified by Datman.
Before your merchants can start using Datman, they must complete onboarding and Know Your Customer (KYC) verification checks. Payment industry regulations require this before your merchants can be paid out. KYC also protects you: it makes sure that each merchant is a real business, and keeps fraudulent merchants off your platform.
Your merchants remain yours. As a reseller or platform, you own the relationship with your merchants. You are responsible for managing that relationship, which includes:
- Collecting the KYC information that your merchants must provide.
- Following up with merchants who fail verification, for example by asking them to upload new documents.
- Setting expectations with your merchants, for example about how long verification takes.
- Handling other communication with your merchants.
This page explains how onboarding works and which tools Datman gives you to manage it.
In this guide, a merchant is a business that takes payments through Datman. Each shop is one merchant, with one merchant ID (MID).
Onboarding types
Datman offers two ways to onboard a merchant. In both, you first create the merchant with the API, and Datman issues a MID.
- Hosted onboarding: you create the merchant with their basic details, and send them a link. Your merchant enters the rest of their information on a hosted page.
- API onboarding: you collect your merchant's business, owner, bank and trading details in your own UI, and send them to Datman when you create the merchant. You then upload their KYC documents with the API.
Business types
Datman uses your merchant's business type to decide which verification information you need to collect. You set it in businessType when you create the merchant. The possible values are Limited, Partnership, Sole Trader, Individual, Trust, Corporation and Other.
When onboarding merchants, consider the following:
- The available business types differ by country. For example, Trust is available only in Australia, and Corporation only in the United States.
- The business type and country determine which details apply. For example, the owner of an Australian merchant has an ABN, and the owner of an Irish merchant has a PPS number.
- The accepted format of each detail depends on the country. For example, a UK sort code has 6 digits and a UK account number has 8 digits.
Recommendation
Onboard each merchant with the correct business type, and send their details in the correct format for their country. You can't change the business type after you create the merchant, and Datman stores a detail that fails its format check as an empty value instead of rejecting your request. Getting both right first time avoids missing details later, and reduces the chance that your merchant drops out before they finish onboarding.
For the rules per country, see Manage merchant details.
Verification process
Datman verifies your merchant's business, owner and bank details, and checks that they have accepted the terms of service. Your merchant can start with staggered onboarding: they can take payments with part of their verification complete, and finish the rest later. When all checks pass, the merchant is fully verified.
On staggered onboarding, your merchant's payouts are paid out up to a total processed amount of 1,000 on Tier 1 and 5,000 on Tier 2, in the local currency. Above that, the merchant must submit more information before Datman pays out their funds. See Staggered onboarding.
Automated data review
Datman checks your merchant's information automatically. If a check can't be completed, the merchant's onboarding status lists the outstanding issues, so that you can help your merchant fix them.
Learn more about how Datman verifies your merchants.
Recommendation
Act quickly when a check fails, to reduce drop-off. You can:
- Check your merchants' onboarding status regularly, and set up a process (automated or operational) to act on outstanding issues.
- Make sure your team knows the verification statuses, so they can spot and fix problems quickly.
Terms of service
Your merchants must accept the terms of service before they can be fully verified. Datman tracks this for each merchant in the tos_status field of the onboarding status.
Your merchant accepts the terms of service that Datman presents to them. They accept the terms on their own behalf.
Onboarding recommendations
Here are some tips to make onboarding and verification smoother for your merchants.
Design an onboarding flow
A well-designed onboarding flow improves your merchants' experience and helps your business grow. Common ways to improve onboarding are:
- Explain the purpose. Merchants may wonder why they must provide certain information. Explain that onboarding is a legal requirement, and that it keeps fraudulent businesses off your platform.
- Set clear expectations. Many merchants don't know the verification process or which documents it needs. Explain what is needed before they start.
- Maximise each interaction. Collect as much high-quality information as you can each time you are in touch with your merchant, so that you don't depend on the next call. For example, complete the onboarding with them during a sales visit.
- Use the data you already have. If you already hold details about a merchant, send them when you create the merchant, or fill in gaps later with a
patchrequest. This means your merchant has less to enter. - Follow up on failed checks. Set up a process that alerts your team when a merchant has outstanding issues, so you can contact the merchant quickly.
Insights and monitoring
You can see the onboarding progress of all your merchants at once. The portfolio summary counts your merchants by onboarding state, for example how many are fully verified and how many are on each verification tier. Use it to spot where merchants get stuck, and to measure the effect of changes you make to your onboarding flow.