Merchant onboarding is where the risk and growth trade-off is sharpest. Tighten the controls to stop the fraudulent applicants and the legitimate ones leave during the wait. Loosen them and you find out later, from someone else.
The way out is not a looser control. It is a control that costs the applicant nothing when the data already answers the question. Company data retrieved instead of requested, ownership resolved automatically, and the additional checks reserved for the applicants whose own risk earned them.