For Banks & Credit Unions
You Earn On A Merchant Portfolio You Cannot See.
The deposits are yours. The customers are yours. The processing economics belong to somebody else, arrive as a monthly statement, and get filed without a single line being reconciled.
Whether you refer merchants to an acquirer or resell its program under your own paper, the same thing is true: the bank owns the customer relationship while somebody else sets the pricing, keeps the larger share, and holds the data that explains the money.
It is the smallest revenue line in a commercial relationship that also carries deposits, lending, card, and treasury. It is also the only one your customer touches every morning, and the only one you have no reporting on.
Straata reads that data. What your merchants are actually charged, what the program actually earns, and what reaches you.
The off-the-shelf AI for your payments data. Pointed at the book you are paid on but never see.
What You Cannot See
Everything The Net Number Leaves Out.
Whether you refer merchants to an acquirer or resell its program under your own paper, the reporting you get back is a net number. None of the following shows up on it, and every one of them compounds quietly, month after month.
The Line You Do Not Operate
The Smallest Line On The Relationship. The Only One You Do Not Run.
A business banking relationship earns on deposits, lending, card, treasury, and merchant services. Merchant is the smallest of the five, and it is the only one somebody else operates.
The smallest line is the one they touch every day.
Deposits, lending, card, treasury, merchant services. Merchant is the last line on the relationship P&L and the only one a third party operates. It is also the only one your customer sees every single morning: yesterday's batch, this month's fees, the deposit that did not land. The loan gets touched once, at renewal. The merchant account gets touched daily, by a vendor you cannot see and did not price. Small line, constant contact, no reporting.
The reporting stops exactly where the questions start.
A residual statement tells you what you were paid. It does not tell you what your customers were charged, which of them were repriced this year, which accounts have gone quiet, or whether the amount you received matches the terms you signed. Every one of those answers sits in files the bank is entitled to request and rarely does.
| Merchant Cohort | Acquirer Net Revenue | Share Owed | Share Paid | Variance |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $184,200 | $9,210 | $9,210 | Ties | |
| $96,400 | $4,820 | $3,910 | Short $910 | |
| $71,800 | $3,590 | $3,590 | Ties | |
| $54,300 | $2,715 | $2,180 | Short $535 | |
| $38,900 | $1,945 | $1,945 | Ties | |
| One Quarter, Five Cohorts | $445,600 | $22,280 | $20,835 | Short $1,445 |
Reconciling the payout is how the bank gets sight of the account. The variance is worth recovering, and the pricing you find on the way is the more useful finding, because a customer being quietly repriced is a customer you are about to have a conversation with.
The first read is cheap. Residual statements, the referral or revenue-share agreement, and a sample of merchant statements are enough to tell you whether the payouts tie, what your customers are actually being charged, and which accounts have gone quiet since last year.
How A Bank Engagement Runs
Four Files In. A Graded Read Of The Whole Book.
The same diagnostic every other channel gets, pointed at bank evidence. No systems integration, no core connection, no IT project. Files you can already pull, back as a report card in a week.
Pull what you already have
Residual or program statements, the referral or revenue-share agreement behind them, and a sample of merchant statements across the portfolio. Nothing that requires a vendor's cooperation to obtain.
Reconcile the payout to the paper
Every fee line normalized and tied back to the terms you actually signed, so a shortfall reads as a specific line on a specific cohort rather than a general suspicion.
Grade the portfolio
Payout accuracy, merchant pricing competitiveness, attrition, and unbilled contract entitlements, each graded and each sized. Findings are stated as identified, with the evidence attached, never as dollars already recovered.
Decide what to move
Recover a shortfall, reprice a program, renegotiate the agreement, or leave it alone. If the book is clean, that is a finding worth having on paper before your next renewal.
Bank data is handled under the same controls as every other engagement. See Trust & Security for how files are transmitted, stored, and destroyed.
The First Conversation
Start With One Statement.
Bring a single quarter of residual or program statements and the agreement behind them. The first read tells you whether the payout ties, what your merchants are being charged, and whether the rest of the portfolio is worth opening up. That answer is useful either way.
One path. Portfolio fit check: referral or reseller structure, book size, and which files you can pull.