Case Study Adyen

In this ‘Owlin case studies’ series, we will take you on a journey to showcase the real-world impact of our platform. For this, we turn to the voices that matter most: our clients. Let’s delve into a recent conversation we had with Jesse Koreman, Financial Risk Analyst at Adyen, about harnessing the power of Owlin to monitor merchants continuously. 

How long have you been working with the Owlin Platform?

“For four years, my full tenure at Adyen.” 

How do you (and your team) use Owlin daily?

“Owlin helps us manage our whole portfolio. When I started at Adyen, it was already not feasible to manually keep track of all the news articles. At the time, we had 300 to 400 hundred entities to keep track of, and today, it’s expanded to a thousand.

Our Merchant Potential Liability Team sees the value of Owlin when merchants are flagged for misconduct or financial stress in a particular client. That helps because it’s something that we can’t manually track, so it gives us an early signal.”

Why is this so useful for Adyen?

“We have regular check-ins, but the continuous monitoring helps us with our ability to move quickly if needed.”

Can you give an example of this?

“Yes, recently, we had a retailer which had raised some questions. At some point, Owlin picked up articles showing that the retailer in question was going into administration or restructuring. This is often a bad sign for us because Adyen could become liable for the risk when an administrator takes over, or there is new ownership.

Flagging this early, which Owlin is well equipped for, helps us mitigate the risk as much as possible. It would have been difficult to catch this with manual monitoring alone. ”

What kind of checks does your team use Owlin for?

“In the last couple of years, we shifted our team structure to designated industry experts for our pillarized offering. This means every expert gets alerted daily on their portfolio via Owlin. Then, some people could be working on a specific client and want to do a live check or look into some historical news data. Lastly, we have people who manage a sensitive portfolio and, therefore, also do live checks via Owlin.”

How does Owlin fit within your overall risk management strategy?

“There are two ways for us to split up the work. The first one is when we have to do an initial review of a client. We check their financial business model and get acquainted with what kind of risk we face. Where Owlin complements this process is with continuous monitoring. Thus, when we say we are happy with the risk we see now. But of course, today’s world can change in days and even hours. With Owlin, that’s something we can manage on the scale we are currently at.”

How do you envision the future of the partnership between Adyen and Owlin?

“In the last few years, we have focused on scalability within Adyen. Owlin has really helped with that and continues to help.” 

Thanks, Jesse!