For some merchant acquirers and payment service providers (PSPs), onboarding clients can be a less than ideal experience for the merchants, causing these merchants to abandon the process. At first glance, some organizations may be fine with this additional friction, particularly when it comes to onboarding SMBs and micro merchants, due to the amount of payment volume those organizations produce. This line of thinking might be misguided, as the number of micro merchants are growing rapidly and are demanding access to digital payments acceptance and a process that they can get up and running quickly. To discuss why and how PSPs and merchant acquirers can streamline the onboarding experience and service the quickly growing micro merchant arena,  PaymentsJournal sat down with Matt Gonzalez, Principal Product Manager Lead at Ekata and Tim Sloane, VP of Payments Innovation and the Director of the Emerging Technologies Advisory Service at Mercator Advisory Group. PaymentsJournalHow Can Payment Service Providers and Merchant Acquirers Streamline the Onboarding Process for Micro Merchants?PaymentsJournal How Can Payment Service Providers and Merchant Acquirers Streamline the Onboarding Process for Micro Merchants?PaymentsJournaljQuery(document).ready(function ($){var settings_ap77675282 = { design_skin: "skin-wave" ,autoplay: "off",disable_volume:"default" ,loop:"off" ,cue: "on" ,embedded: "off" ,preload_method:"metadata" ,design_animateplaypause:"off" ,skinwave_dynamicwaves:"off" ,skinwave_enableSpectrum:"off" ,skinwave_enableReflect:"on",settings_backup_type:"full",playfrom:"default",soundcloud_apikey:"" ,skinwave_comments_enable:"off",settings_php_handler:window.ajaxurl,skinwave_wave_mode:"canvas",pcm_data_try_to_generate: "on","pcm_notice": "off","notice_no_media": "on",design_color_bg: "111111",design_color_highlight: "ef6b13",skinwave_wave_mode_canvas_waves_number: "3",skinwave_wave_mode_canvas_waves_padding: "1",skinwave_wave_mode_canvas_reflection_size: "0.25",skinwave_comments_playerid:"77675282",php_retriever:"https://www.paymentsjournal.com/wp-content/plugins/dzs-zoomsounds/soundcloudretriever.php" }; try{ dzsap_init(".ap_idx_256075_2",settings_ap77675282); }catch(err){ console.warn("cannot init player", err); } }); Small and micro merchants pack an economic punch Micro merchant is a newer term in the industry. Matt Gonzalez of Ekata explains that it’s defined by the industry as “a business that’s accruing $1 to $5,000 in revenue a month, with typically under ten employees.” A few months into 2020 the world saw a substantial influx in new small and medium sized (SMEs) organizations, a phenomenon inspired by an increasingly digital world. There are an estimated 55 million micro merchants and over 25 million small merchants in emerging markets. These numbers continue to move upward because of the pandemic. Formal SMEs contribute up to 40% of the national income (GDP) in emerging economies. These numbers grow significantly when informal SMEs are included in the tally. This trend is not only found in emerging markets but also in the U.S. and Canada. Over 40 million Americans have become independent contractors since 2020, and SMEs created about 77% of the new jobs in Canada between 2002 and 2012. The infographic below attempts to quantify the SMEs as an addressable market. It also attempts to demonstrate the size of the unmet demand for access to financing from these businesses. “This really should be of interest to anyone in the global financial services i...