How a Payments Company Streamlines Adverse Media Monitoring for High-Risk Merchants

The client

The client is a global payments company managing a portfolio of high-risk merchants across multiple markets. Operating in a regulated environment, the organization needed a more efficient way to support compliance monitoring, screening, and reporting across its merchant portfolio.

The challenge

Before using Owlin, the client relied on more manual processes to support compliance monitoring and screening across its high-risk merchant portfolio. Adverse media checks, screening, and reporting required significant analyst time, while growing monitoring needs made it harder to maintain consistency and keep up with potential risk developments.

The organization needed a solution that could:

• Improve adverse media monitoring across high-risk merchants
• Strengthen screening capabilities for compliance workflows
• Make reporting easier and less manual for analyst teams
• Support a more scalable approach to ongoing merchant monitoring

The solution

Owlin provided the client with a more structured way to manage ongoing merchant monitoring and screening workflows. The platform supported adverse media alerts, screening, case handling, newsletter-style distribution, and reporting outputs that fit into day-to-day compliance operations.

With Owlin, the client gained:

• A more streamlined approach to reviewing adverse media developments
• Better support for screening across companies, sanctions and PEPs
• Clearer visibility into analyst activity, case handling, and review decisions
• Easier distribution of relevant updates across teams
• More efficient reporting workflows with less manual effort

Owlin helped the client move from manual processes toward a more consistent and operational approach to merchant risk monitoring.

The impact

By using Owlin, the client improved visibility across merchant monitoring workflows and made analyst review processes more efficient.

Key outcomes include:

• Faster review workflows for analysts handling merchant risk alerts
• Clearer tracking of case review and decision-making
• Reduced manual effort for compliance monitoring and reporting
• Better support for adverse media and screening workflows
• More structured monitoring across a growing high-risk merchant portfolio

As usage expanded, Owlin became more embedded in the client’s day-to-day compliance operations, helping teams work more consistently and at greater scale.