Merchant Onboarding
Complete merchant account onboarding, settlement setup, and launch readiness before taking production payments.
#Purpose
Covers merchant account readiness, operational ownership setup, settlement assumptions, and go-live decision gates.
#
- Legal business profile and required verification artifacts are prepared.
- Named operational owners exist for payments, finance close, and incident response.
- Settlement destination accounts and payout currencies are confirmed internally.
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- Create merchant account and assign least-privilege roles for operations, finance, and support.
- Complete verification workflow and resolve any pending data requests.
- Configure settlement profile, payout schedule assumptions, and reconciliation contacts.
- Register webhook endpoint and alert channels for payment and settlement events.
- Run sandbox and low-risk production smoke tests across payment, refund, and payout flows.
- Execute go-live checklist sign-off across merchant operations and engineering owners.
#Expected outcomes and confirmations
- Account status is active for intended merchant capabilities.
- Settlement profile validates and payout destination is accepted.
- First controlled transaction flow is confirmed end to end.
#Common failure states
- Verification remains pending due to incomplete or mismatched business details.
- Settlement destination fails validation or does not match approved entity data.
- Webhook endpoint setup succeeds but event handling is not acknowledged in operations.
#
- Correct account or settlement data and re-run validation immediately.
- Replay test transactions and verify event acknowledgements before reattempting go-live.
- Escalate with merchant ID, request IDs, and failed checkpoint evidence if activation remains blocked.
#Risk and compliance notes
- Do not share production credentials outside approved key-management controls.
- Restrict who can modify payout destinations and refund permissions.
- Maintain an auditable go-live checklist with date, owner, and approval trace.