Onboarding for SMB PSPs – Nightmare or Niche?
Curious if anyone else is still banging their head against the wall trying to onboard with various payment service providers for smaller volume operations. It feels like anything under, say, $500k monthly is treated as a suspicious activity report waiting to happen, with KYB processes that demand the blood type of my firstborn. The spreads are one thing, and I get that; risk needs to be priced. But the sheer administrative burden just to get a merchant account up and running, especially for a new venture, often makes me wonder if they even want our business. Are there any hidden gems out there for sub-$1M annual turnover that don't treat you like a high-risk illicit arms dealer, or is that just the price of doing business at this scale these days?
I've definitely experienced this. It feels like many of the larger PSPs are geared towards higher volume and have a hard time scaling down their KYB/AML processes efficiently for smaller SMBs, which creates a significant friction point for growth.