Embedded Payments
Why phased merchant onboarding beats traditional KYC every time
Andrei Valeanu
10 jul 2025
Nobody wakes up excited to fill out a form (though I do know a couple of people in compliance who either genuinely enjoy it or have at least been accused of that).
And no SaaS platform dreams of building one for their merchants either.
But here we are: still asking merchants to slog through 20+ input fields, upload unclear documentation, and wait days(or sometimes weeks!) before they can process a single payment.
Remember the fairy-tale of the ugly duckling that turned into a swan? Your onboarding can go a step further and turn into a golden-egg-laying goose. That’s what phased onboarding unlocks.
The problem: Traditional onboarding kills momentum
Your merchant is ready to try your product and process a payment. But instead, they’re asked to complete a long list of forms and upload documentation before they can do either.
The problem isn’t just friction. It’s timing and relevance:
You’re often requesting information before you’ve delivered any value.
A lot of this information could be automatically retrieved, verified, or deferred.
What should be a quick start becomes a drawn-out compliance process. And it’s one that many merchants simply decide isn’t worth the trouble.
With phased onboarding, we shift the weight: front-load only what’s needed, and use smarter signals and data sources to handle the rest when it’s needed.
The solution: Phased onboarding as the smarter default
Phased onboarding breaks the compliance flow down into simple, embedded steps. It starts with the essentials, unlocks functionality quickly, and only escalates when needed.
Here’s what a phased merchant onboarding process looks like with a platform like Embed (that’s us, by the way!):
Get live: We collect the necessary information from your merchants, risk-score instantly, and let your merchants start processing early.
Scale up: We request additional information only when required, typically when higher volumes trigger verification or payouts are due.
Stay compliant: We continue running silent checks in the background, refreshing risk posture over time.
See how easy it is to get started:
It’s not about skipping checks. KYC exists for a good reason — to keep bad actors out of the system and ensure the integrity of financial services. That said, its efficiency is far from perfect (but that’s a conversation for another blog post). While bad actors exist, the vast majority of merchants are not the problem!
Phased onboarding ensures your merchants aren’t punished with unnecessary friction just because a few others spoil it. When done right, it turns a jarring checkpoint into a fluid path, one that keeps your merchants moving forward and protects your business without sacrificing conversion.
That’s how your ugly duckling of a form becomes a golden-egg-laying merchant onboarding flow.
Why your platform wins with phased onboarding
Traditional onboarding asks too much, too soon and it slows everyone down.
Phased onboarding flips the script: your merchants start faster, your team stays focused and compliance still gets what it needs.
Here’s what that looks like for your platform, and your team.
Benefits of phased onboarding for your merchants
✓ Faster go-live
Merchants can process their first transaction within hours, not days or weeks. Their momentum becomes your momentum.
✓ More merchants, more revenue
By removing unnecessary early friction, you unlock more active users — and they start transacting sooner.
✓ Fewer support tickets
No more chasing documents that weren’t needed. No more payout delays. Fewer “Why can’t I get started?” escalations.
✓ Smarter compliance
Our risk engine handles dynamic limits and ongoing screening. When you work with a platform like Embed, you don’t need to design escalation rules or run your own KYC workflows.
✓ Targeted risk focus
With our risk engine and approach, we focus our effort where it counts: on actual risk. Bad actors are filtered out; everyone else sails through.
Benefits of phased onboarding for your team
With phased onboarding embedded into your platform, you can stop:
Asking merchants for unnecessary documents before they’ve even processed a transaction
Managing custom logic for every edge case
Writing compliance-heavy onboarding flows from scratch
Sending "reminder" emails to chase information you don’t really need yet
Manually reviewing low-risk merchants who should’ve been auto-approved
Your ops team gets time back. Your growth team gets better funnel metrics. Your product stays in control.
Why phased onboarding works for modern merchants
Phased onboarding works because it respects how merchants behave:
They want to test-drive your product fast.
They expect onboarding to be intuitive and lightweight: minimal input, smart autofill. We pull the rest in the background.
They’re fine sharing more once they see value.
At Embed, we built our onboarding flow to reflect that logic. And we made sure it works everywhere compliance does.
Make phased onboarding your competitive edge with Embed
Remember the ugly duckling that became a swan?
Phased onboarding takes it a step further. It turns clunky compliance into a streamlined, revenue-generating engine.
Fewer roadblocks. Smarter checkpoints. Faster activation.
That’s the golden goose your onboarding should be.
So how do you get there? With Embed, setting it up is simpler than you'd think.
Let merchants start quickly with minimal input
Collect risk data in the background
Automate checks as they scale
Keep compliance teams happy from day one
Want to see what that looks like in practice? Book a 30-minute call and we’ll show you how fast merchant onboarding can become a growth lever for your SaaS business.
Nobody wakes up excited to fill out a form (though I do know a couple of people in compliance who either genuinely enjoy it or have at least been accused of that).
And no SaaS platform dreams of building one for their merchants either.
But here we are: still asking merchants to slog through 20+ input fields, upload unclear documentation, and wait days(or sometimes weeks!) before they can process a single payment.
Remember the fairy-tale of the ugly duckling that turned into a swan? Your onboarding can go a step further and turn into a golden-egg-laying goose. That’s what phased onboarding unlocks.
The problem: Traditional onboarding kills momentum
Your merchant is ready to try your product and process a payment. But instead, they’re asked to complete a long list of forms and upload documentation before they can do either.
The problem isn’t just friction. It’s timing and relevance:
You’re often requesting information before you’ve delivered any value.
A lot of this information could be automatically retrieved, verified, or deferred.
What should be a quick start becomes a drawn-out compliance process. And it’s one that many merchants simply decide isn’t worth the trouble.
With phased onboarding, we shift the weight: front-load only what’s needed, and use smarter signals and data sources to handle the rest when it’s needed.
The solution: Phased onboarding as the smarter default
Phased onboarding breaks the compliance flow down into simple, embedded steps. It starts with the essentials, unlocks functionality quickly, and only escalates when needed.
Here’s what a phased merchant onboarding process looks like with a platform like Embed (that’s us, by the way!):
Get live: We collect the necessary information from your merchants, risk-score instantly, and let your merchants start processing early.
Scale up: We request additional information only when required, typically when higher volumes trigger verification or payouts are due.
Stay compliant: We continue running silent checks in the background, refreshing risk posture over time.
See how easy it is to get started:
It’s not about skipping checks. KYC exists for a good reason — to keep bad actors out of the system and ensure the integrity of financial services. That said, its efficiency is far from perfect (but that’s a conversation for another blog post). While bad actors exist, the vast majority of merchants are not the problem!
Phased onboarding ensures your merchants aren’t punished with unnecessary friction just because a few others spoil it. When done right, it turns a jarring checkpoint into a fluid path, one that keeps your merchants moving forward and protects your business without sacrificing conversion.
That’s how your ugly duckling of a form becomes a golden-egg-laying merchant onboarding flow.
Why your platform wins with phased onboarding
Traditional onboarding asks too much, too soon and it slows everyone down.
Phased onboarding flips the script: your merchants start faster, your team stays focused and compliance still gets what it needs.
Here’s what that looks like for your platform, and your team.
Benefits of phased onboarding for your merchants
✓ Faster go-live
Merchants can process their first transaction within hours, not days or weeks. Their momentum becomes your momentum.
✓ More merchants, more revenue
By removing unnecessary early friction, you unlock more active users — and they start transacting sooner.
✓ Fewer support tickets
No more chasing documents that weren’t needed. No more payout delays. Fewer “Why can’t I get started?” escalations.
✓ Smarter compliance
Our risk engine handles dynamic limits and ongoing screening. When you work with a platform like Embed, you don’t need to design escalation rules or run your own KYC workflows.
✓ Targeted risk focus
With our risk engine and approach, we focus our effort where it counts: on actual risk. Bad actors are filtered out; everyone else sails through.
Benefits of phased onboarding for your team
With phased onboarding embedded into your platform, you can stop:
Asking merchants for unnecessary documents before they’ve even processed a transaction
Managing custom logic for every edge case
Writing compliance-heavy onboarding flows from scratch
Sending "reminder" emails to chase information you don’t really need yet
Manually reviewing low-risk merchants who should’ve been auto-approved
Your ops team gets time back. Your growth team gets better funnel metrics. Your product stays in control.
Why phased onboarding works for modern merchants
Phased onboarding works because it respects how merchants behave:
They want to test-drive your product fast.
They expect onboarding to be intuitive and lightweight: minimal input, smart autofill. We pull the rest in the background.
They’re fine sharing more once they see value.
At Embed, we built our onboarding flow to reflect that logic. And we made sure it works everywhere compliance does.
Make phased onboarding your competitive edge with Embed
Remember the ugly duckling that became a swan?
Phased onboarding takes it a step further. It turns clunky compliance into a streamlined, revenue-generating engine.
Fewer roadblocks. Smarter checkpoints. Faster activation.
That’s the golden goose your onboarding should be.
So how do you get there? With Embed, setting it up is simpler than you'd think.
Let merchants start quickly with minimal input
Collect risk data in the background
Automate checks as they scale
Keep compliance teams happy from day one
Want to see what that looks like in practice? Book a 30-minute call and we’ll show you how fast merchant onboarding can become a growth lever for your SaaS business.