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Help me balance speed and security "Medium-sized business owners and big brands tend to
worry about the same things," Wakefield said. "Pure SMB,
David Greenberg, chief administrative officer at North mom-and-pop merchants are a mostly emotional sale.
American Bancard Holdings LLC, emphasized the need You're not going to sit down with them and review the
to balance fast onboarding with skilled underwriting and fraud report. You'll say, 'We have an encryption solution
risk management. This includes looking for red flags such and we'll charge you $15 a month to protect your system.'"
as a wrong number on a merchant application. Noting that Wakefield called the old model of reviewing merchant
fraudsters have also improved their transaction speeds, statements and offering competitive rates a "one-trick
Greenberg advised processors to apply all requirements pony," noting that there's no place for them in today's
to merchants in their due diligence, with no exceptions. "It small merchant marketplace. It's time to evolve, he stated.
can be easy for merchants to have frictionless, personalized Instead of talking price, talk about their business, he
solutions if they choose to ignore the rules," he added. counseled. Become vertically focused by learning about
their industries, so that you can explain how industry
Greenberg also highlighted the importance of a May 2018 trends will impact their businesses. Ask questions. Ask
rule issued by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network merchants if they could choose one thing to improve their
(FinCEN). The rule provides guidance on customer due business this year, what it would be, he added.
diligence (CDD) and is designed to improve transparency
and prevent criminals from misrepresenting targets' Futureproof my business
business accounts and activities. The ruling's four
requirements are as follows: MLSs are always selling in the enterprise world, Wakefield
said. A majority of businesses start their fiscal years
1. Identify and verify the identity of customers. in February, so sales representatives try to get budgets
wrapped up before the holiday season. Proposals for
2. Identify and verify the identity of the beneficial the following year's projects are typically sent out in
owners of companies opening accounts. the summer months. "You may propose enhancing old
systems with a solid ROI," he said. "When you know it's
3. Understand the nature and purpose of customer not in the budget for next year, you keep on selling at
relationships to develop customer risk profiles. different levels."
4. Conduct ongoing monitoring to identify and report
suspicious transactions and maintain and update Keeping your sales pipeline filled, thinking ahead and
customer information. reacting quickly are critical to success in enterprise selling,
according to Wakefield. "When I worked at Verifone, I
"These rules apply not just to the merchant, but to owners knew clients were planning to launch mobile projects," he
of the merchant, even those who only have a 25 percent said. "But their funds got pulled after the Target breach. In
ownership stake," Greenberg added. "Follow the rules, some cases, we offered host settlement solutions to help
maintain transparency and use technologies to reduce clients keep card data out of scope."
friction and improve transaction speed without sacrificing
security. Biometric solutions such as retina scanning on Wakefield expects to see increased adoption of mobile
smartphones can securely authenticate consumers and wallets and in-app payments in the SMB sector. Paysafe
reload their prepaid accounts in seconds." research supports his predictions, showing growing
demand for near field communications at the POS. "The
Treat me like a pro hardware in stores will need upgrading if plans to offer new
methods are going to work," report authors wrote. "Sixty-
In today's merchant environment, everyone knows six percent of stores in the U.S. and Canada currently have
more about payments, security and fraud, stated Jeff chip card readers and 60 percent have a fixed terminal
Wakefield, payments industry veteran and principal at the where a customer has to pay; only 36 confirm they use
consultancy Customer Focused Marketing. "MLSs have to dedicated contactless terminals and only 29 percent have
become more knowledgeable and be better consultants so wireless terminals that can be brought to the customer."
that they can talk about their customers' businesses," he
said. Wakefield noted his firm is thinking ahead to the following
year, and merchants are too. "Merchants may not be ready
Wakefield views mentality, not size, as a key differentiator to implement a new solution until something triggers it or
between small firms and enterprise organizations. For they realize that they are losing business because they are
example, mom-and-pop merchants that open a few stores not offering a particular program or service."
would still be considered SMBs. Merchants become
midsize businesses when they add layers of management
and put other people in charge of stuff, he explained. Dale S. Laszig, senior staff writer at The Green Sheet and managing
That's when your sale becomes a mini-enterprise sale. director at DSL Direct LLC, is a payments industry journalist and content
provider. She can be reached at dale@dsldirectllc.com and on Twitter
at @DSLdirect.

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