Internal briefing · v1.1 · 9 September 2026
Merit ID × LSEG
What we found, and what we need from the business
→ next← backEsc all slides
F fullscreenN notesT theme
Seventeen slides, about ten minutes. This is v1.1, corrected after Julie's note in #newbiz-lseg. Stop me anywhere.
1 / 17
v1.1 corrects a mistake in v1.0
Merit ID is not the same as our partners programmes. We own the data in the Merit ID.
Julie Barbier · #newbiz-lseg, 9 September 2026
v1.0 said Merit has no member identity to screen, and blamed a rule that only covers our partner programmes. That put the wrong blocker on our own product. This version splits the two populations and fixes the order of what to do next.
Julie caught this the day after v1.0 went out. She is right, and it changes the whole recommendation.
2 / 17
LSEG offered five ways to work together
1Risk intelligence into Merit IDOurs. This deck.
2Trusted CommerceOurs. This deck.
3Market data inside InnovationTamer and Fred
4LSEG as a Merit customerFadi and Mark
5Joint proposition for banksLater
Julie's note from LEAP. Fadi leads the relationship. We took the two that touch Merit ID.
3 / 17
We picked the right product.
Half of this is already unblocked.
We just haven't done it.
That is the new headline. The other half is still a partnership problem, and that part hasn't changed.
4 / 17
Screening always starts with a name
To check whether someone is on a
sanctions list, you need their name.
Name, date of birth, nationality, a document. That is what any provider asks for. LSEG is no different.
Nothing clever here. It is worth saying out loud because everything else follows from it.
5 / 17
We have two kinds of member.
Only one of them is ours.
Merit ID member
- signs up with Merit
- consents to Merit
- Merit owns the record
Partner programme member
- signs up with the partner
- consents to the partner
- the partner owns the record
Merit ID is our own product. A partner programme member, for example an Al Fursan member, belongs to Saudia. v1.0 treated these as one population. That was the mistake.
This split is the whole correction. Everything after this slide follows from it.
6 / 17
Merit ID members are ours.
We own the data.
The member signs up with Merit.
Consents to Merit. We own the record.
That was Julie's exact correction. No partner sits in this chain, so no permission is missing here. The gap is somewhere else.
Credit: Julie Barbier, #newbiz-lseg, 9 September 2026.
7 / 17
We just never asked them for a name
What Merit ID holds about a member
- a handle
- an email
- a phone number
- a KYC status
What a screening check needs
- full name
- date of birth
- nationality
- an ID document
The gap is real, but it is not a wall. Merit chose this scope for sign-in. Nothing stops Merit from asking its own members for more.
This is the complete list on the left, from the Merit ID data model. Not a summary of it.
8 / 17
That is a product decision, not a negotiation
Merit can ask its own members for a name. Nobody else has to agree.
Add name, date of birth and a document to onboarding, with consent. Merit owns the product and the member, so this is Merit's call to make alone. One honest limit: Android is live, public launch was end of July, and the target is 125,000 monthly transacting users by December. This route is unblocked, not finished.
Verify's exact request schema decides which fields we ask for. That question is now a dependency, not a nice-to-have.
9 / 17
Partner programme members are a different story
No member tier, identity, or any other Al Fursan member data is ever stored on Merit's side.
Our own Promo Engine specification, TR-05 · decided 3 August 2026
This rule is about Al Fursan member data held by the tenant. It says nothing about Merit ID. For partner programme members, it is the real blocker, and it was a deliberate call.
The compliance approval for the alternative was withdrawn the same day. Nobody made a mistake in August. v1.0 misapplied this rule in September.
10 / 17
So: route C first. Route B in parallel.
CAsk our own Merit ID membersNobody's permission needed. It is our own product. Start now.Recommended
BCheck without keeping, for the partner baseThe partner sends the details for one check. We pass them on and keep only the outcome, never the details.
AAsk the partner to hand over the dataReverses what we agreed in August. New legal terms with every partner. Slowest.
Route C needs nobody's agreement, so it goes first. Route B needs a tenant to sign, so it runs alongside it, not after it.
v1.0 filed route C last, as a slow base-builder. That was the conflation. It is the only route that needs nobody's agreement.
11 / 17
Route C also closes Verify's one weak spot
Verify checks a member once. A clean record today says nothing about two years from now. Route B cannot fix that alone. Route C can.
Route B needs the partner to hand over the details again for every re-check. Route C means Merit holds the attributes, so Merit can re-screen on its own schedule, no partner involved. The cost is per-call pricing, one of the open questions for LSEG.
The trade: Merit becomes the custodian of identity data, on purpose. Residency in Jeddah or Riyadh, under SAMA and NCA. A retention policy and a deletion path. Legal has not confirmed this yet.
This is the strongest argument for route C: it is the only route where Merit can close the monitoring gap by its own decision. It also means Merit takes on a real custodian obligation, and Legal has not signed off.
12 / 17
We already do this for sellers
Company screening has run
since February.
Company registration, tax number, the owner's ID, checked against watchlists. It runs today. Merit ID members are also a direct Merit relationship, which is what makes them screenable too, once we collect the same kind of attributes. One thing to confirm: whether the check fires on every single application, which nobody has verified.
Through Themis. Live since February 2026 in the Seller Portal and Partner Portal.
13 / 17
The difference is who they signed up with
| Sellers | Merit ID members | Partner members |
|---|
| Who they registered with | Us | Us | The partner |
| What we receive | Company details, owner's ID, bank account | Handle, email, phone, KYC status | A member identifier |
| Can we screen them | Yes | Not yet, and only because we never asked | No |
One rule explains all three: we can screen exactly the people who have a direct relationship with us. Sellers and Merit ID members qualify. Partner members don't, not yet.
If somebody asks why sellers work and members do not, this table is the answer. Merit ID members are one column away from screenable.
14 / 17
Why B works, for the partner base
LSEG's product stores nothing either.
It answers the question and forgets it. So Merit keeping nothing is not a compromise we negotiated, it is how the product already works. Route B stays inside the rule we set in August.
One limit stays: we can only check who the partner sends us. Coverage becomes their decision, and we should say that to a bank before they find it themselves.
This is why the product recommendation and the partner data route fit together. Verify is stateless by design.
15 / 17
The other thing we found, and it is closer to home
When we pay a seller, nothing checks
the bank account is really theirs.
Today: the account number is checked for typos, they upload a bank letter, and we warn if the name does not match. LSEG has a product that does exactly this one thing. First question for them is whether it covers Saudi Arabia.
Global Account Verification. Open question is whether it covers Saudi Arabia, which is a question for LSEG.
16 / 17
What we need
1A product decision: does Merit ID start collecting name, date of birth and a document, with consentMerit's own call. No counterparty. The fastest thing on this whole list.
2An owner for the partner negotiation, plus one pilot tenantRoute B needs one tenant to sign processor terms before it becomes real.
?One fact we need someone to dig outWho supplies our seller screening today. We buy this already and it is not written down anywhere. LSEG will ask.
The full note, with the nine questions for LSEG: merit-artifacts.pages.dev/merit-id-x-lseg-world-check
Close here. Ask for both the product decision and the owner in the room if you can.
17 / 17