TMU Management and actuary.aero have announced a collaboration to provide acquiring banks with real-time exposure intelligence combined with portfolio-level insurance for deferred delivery merchant portfolios.
The partnership addresses a persistent structural limitation in acquirer risk management, namely the reliance on approximated, retrospectively assessed exposure data rather than live, transaction-level visibility. In deferred delivery sectors, where payment is collected before a service or product is delivered, exposure can build significantly before traditional risk controls detect it, creating challenges for capital treatment, merchant underwriting, and chargeback reserve management.
Operating model and capabilities
The collaboration combines TMU Management's Acquirer Chargeback Insurance with actuary.aero's transaction-level exposure intelligence platform. Together, these enable acquiring banks to monitor deferred delivery portfolios in real time, adding or removing individual merchants as their exposure profiles change rather than applying broad, static reserve requirements across entire portfolios.
The model is designed to allow static, assumption-based reserves to be replaced or supplemented depending on an acquirer's risk strategy, with all decisions informed by live exposure data. A stated outcome of the approach is improved alignment between acquirers and insurers, as exposure data is shared continuously and assessed at a granular level. Insurers develop an understanding of portfolio behaviour in advance of any claim, supporting clearer underwriting terms, faster claims assessment, and fewer disputed outcomes.
Sami Doyle of TMU Management noted that the approach allows risk to be transferred and governed with greater precision than static controls typically permit. Adding to this, Livia Vité, CEO of actuary.aero, described the core challenge in deferred delivery risk as one of visibility rather than manageability, with the collaboration enabling earlier intervention by translating complex transaction data into a shared, real-time view of exposure.
Sector applicability
The collaboration is initially focused on the travel sector, where deferred delivery exposure is at its most complex and highest volume. The model is also applicable to ticketing, events, and prepaid leisure, which are all sectors where payment collection precedes fulfilment by weeks or months, and where merchant failure or disruption can generate significant chargeback liability for acquiring banks.
