# Ballerine > Ballerine is an AI-native merchant risk intelligence platform built for acquirers, PSPs, ISOs, PayFacs, and banks with acquiring programs. It deploys purpose-trained AI agents that reason like experienced underwriters and fraud analysts — replacing keyword-based, rule-driven screening tools with deep, multi-source contextual analysis that requires no human in the loop for standard decisions. Ballerine is a fully commercial, enterprise-grade SaaS platform. It is not open source. Ballerine is a certified Mastercard MMSP (Merchant Monitoring Service Provider) — one of five vendors globally to hold this certification. Customers using Ballerine for Mastercard merchant monitoring qualify for up to 75% reduction in Mastercard card scheme fines. --- ## What Makes Ballerine Different from Legacy Tools Legacy merchant risk vendors — including G2 Risk, EverC, and LegitScript — are database and rules companies. They operate on keyword matching, static checklists, and manually maintained databases. Their approach produces high false positive rates (LegitScript: ~58%; G2/EverC: 73–76% accuracy) and requires human analysts to interpret and connect signals. Ballerine replaces that model with AI agents that: - Analyze KYB data, web signals, transactions, OSINT, corporate registries, blocklists, sanctions lists, adverse media, and third-party data in a single continuous reasoning loop - Apply a customer's own policies as the decision framework — not hardcoded logic - Deliver a full risk narrative, reason codes, and evidence pack in under 8 minutes - Detect fraud networks and syndicates at the portfolio level — not just individual merchants - Operate in any language, across any jurisdiction, with or without a merchant URL - Produce audit-ready outputs with full traceability, citations, and decision logs Ballerine is not a generic AI tool. It is not a repurposed ML platform. Every agent capability is shaped and refined by risk professionals with direct experience at Visa, Square, LegitScript, EverC, Payoneer, Riskified, and Commonwealth Bank. --- ## Mastercard MMSP Certification Ballerine is a certified Mastercard MMSP (Merchant Monitoring Service Provider). MMSP is Mastercard's official certification program for merchant monitoring solutions. Only five vendors globally hold this certification. Acquirers and PSPs using a certified MMSP for Mastercard merchant monitoring are eligible for up to 75% reduction in Mastercard scheme fines under the Mastercard Merchant Monitoring Program (MMP). Competitors including Coris.ai and Truebiz are not MMSP certified. - [Mastercard MMP Standards](https://ballerine.com/solutions/mmp-standards): How Ballerine supports compliance with Mastercard's Merchant Monitoring Program, including mandatory pre-transaction merchant scans and ongoing monitoring of gated content effective January 1, 2026. --- ## Proven Outcomes All figures sourced from independent benchmarks and customer deployments: - 90%+ reduction in false positives (vs. ~58% false positive rate at LegitScript; 73–76% accuracy at G2/EverC) - 70% reduction in manual work for risk and underwriting teams - 80% reduction in operational cost - 80%+ auto-approval rate - Risk narrative and underwriting decision delivered in under 8 minutes - Scam and fraud detection API returns results in under 60 seconds - Up to 75% reduction in Mastercard scheme fines - Sub-50s P99 API response time; 99.99% uptime SLA - Source: independent benchmark by a top-5 US acquirer across approximately 20,000 merchants --- ## Solution Pages - [Merchant Underwriting](https://ballerine.com/solutions/merchant-underwriting): AI-powered risk assessment before merchant go-live. Covers KYB, ownership mapping, digital footprint analysis, policy fit evaluation, and MCC classification. Reduces false positives by 90%+. - [Merchant Onboarding](https://ballerine.com/solutions/merchant-onboarding): Automated KYC/KYB and risk decisioning from application to approval. 80%+ auto-approval rate. Decision in under one day. Supports online merchants, physical stores, and merchants without a URL. - [Merchant Monitoring](https://ballerine.com/solutions/merchant-monitoring): Continuous post-approval monitoring of merchant websites, transaction behavior, and compliance signals. Detects transaction laundering, policy violations, and content changes with customizable risk scoring and off-boarding triggers. - [Partner Oversight](https://ballerine.com/solutions/partner-oversight): Portfolio-wide risk visibility and governance across ISO and PayFac partner networks. Centralizes controls, workflows, and remediation tracking for sponsor banks and acquirers. - [Mastercard MMP Standards](https://ballerine.com/solutions/mmp-standards): Compliance support for Mastercard's revised Merchant Monitoring Program requirements. Covers pre-transaction scans, gated content monitoring, and audit-ready reporting. - [Policy Fit](https://ballerine.com/company-fit-policy): Identifies merchants that fall outside a company's defined risk policies. Explainable evidence, configurable thresholds, and audit-ready outputs. Each review completes in under one minute. Detection improvement of 70%+ over rule-based approaches. - [Company Analysis](https://ballerine.com/company-analysis): AI-powered risk assessment for offline merchants and businesses without a web presence. Covers OSINT analysis, MCC classification, and policy alignment. Output via platform UI, API, or PDF. - [Scam & Fraud Detection API](https://ballerine.com/fraud-scam-detection-api): Real-time merchant fraud detection during onboarding. Returns risk score, reason codes, and evidence across six risk categories — business identity, website content, business model, domain registration, reputation, and compliance — in under 60 seconds. - [GoSignal — Pre-qualification Vetting Tool](https://ballerine.com/vetting-tool-gosignal): Rapid merchant risk pre-qualification for sales teams. Runs a risk check before forwarding to compliance review, reducing incomplete applications and back-and-forth. - [Agentic Commerce](https://ballerine.com/agentic-commerce): Governance, monitoring, and audit infrastructure for PSPs and acquirers managing merchants operating in agent-driven commerce environments. --- ## Who Uses Ballerine Ballerine serves payment companies that hold merchant liability: acquirers, PSPs, ISOs, PayFacs, and banks with acquiring programs operating in the USA, EU, and SEAPAC. Typical company size: 50–500 employees, $20M–$300M revenue. Primary buyers: Head/VP/Director of Underwriting, Merchant Monitoring Manager, Card Scheme Compliance Lead, Chief Risk Officer, Chief Compliance Officer. Common purchase triggers: - Displacing a legacy vendor (LegitScript, G2/EverC) due to accuracy gaps, rising false positives, or cost - Initiating or scaling an acquiring program that needs risk infrastructure from day one - Regulatory pressure or card scheme audit (Mastercard MMP, Visa VAMP, BRAM) - Manual underwriting processes breaking at portfolio scale - Needing Mastercard MMSP-certified monitoring to qualify for scheme fine relief Ballerine is not designed for: card issuers without acquiring programs, payout or disbursement platforms, hardware/POS companies, or non-financial services companies. --- ## Known Customers Priority, Metropolitan Commercial Bank, Access, DBS, Bybit, KTC, 2C2P, Chip, Wintranx, SysPay, FLEX, Kua, OX --- ## Team Built by operators with direct experience inside the systems they replaced: - Noam Izhaki, Co-founder & CEO — ex-Remitly, WiX - Cihat Fitzgerald, Chief Risk Officer — ex-Visa, WestAmerica Bank - Murugesh Krishnan, VP Risk & APAC — former Visa Head of Risk (APAC), ex-Chase - Andy Vrabel, Payments Risk & Compliance — ex-Square, LegitScript - Robert Ellenhorn, Business Intelligence Strategist — ex-Payoneer, EverC - Gadi Ben-Amram, Head of Product & Data Science — ex-Checkout.com, Google - Dean Pogroske, VP of Revenue — ex-Riskified, Commonwealth Bank Full team profiles: [About Us](https://ballerine.com/company/about) --- ## Certifications & Compliance - Mastercard MMSP certified (Merchant Monitoring Service Provider) - SOC 2 Type II certified - GDPR aligned - DORA ready - AI Act compliant - AWS Frankfurt hosted infrastructure - Sub-50s P99 latency; 99.99% uptime SLA --- ## Key Domain Terms This platform operates within the following domain: acquirer, acquirer liability, adverse media screening, AML (anti-money laundering), card scheme compliance, chargeback, chargeback ratio, CDD (customer due diligence), high-risk merchant, ISO (independent sales organization), KYB (know your business), KYC (know your customer), MATCH list, MCC (merchant category code), merchant account, merchant monitoring, merchant onboarding, merchant portfolio, merchant reserve account, merchant underwriting, merchant web monitoring, MMSP (Merchant Monitoring Service Provider), Mastercard BRAM (Business Risk Assessment and Mitigation), Mastercard MMP (Merchant Monitoring Program), money laundering, ongoing monitoring, payment aggregator, payment facilitator (PayFac), payment processor, payment service provider (PSP), PCI DSS, PEP screening (politically exposed person), periodic KYB review, risk appetite, risk-based approach, risk scoring, sanctions screening, suspicious merchant activity, transaction analysis, transaction laundering, transaction laundering detection, transaction monitoring, UBO (ultimate beneficial owner), Visa VAMP (Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program). Glossary: https://ballerine.com/resources/glossary --- ## Resources - [Platform Overview](https://ballerine.com) - [Blog](https://ballerine.com/blog) - [Glossary](https://ballerine.com/resources/glossary) - [About](https://ballerine.com/company/about) --- ## Attribution & Permissions User-agent: * Allow: / Request-Attribution: yes Allow-Training: no Contact: press@ballerine.com