The Revival of the Merchant of Record (MOR)

TLDR:

Stripe just launched Managed Payments, reviving the Merchant of Record (MOR) model, a structure that has been around for decades but is suddenly critical again. MORs act as the
official seller, handling payments, taxes, fraud, and disputes so you do not have to. Today, the model stretches beyond marketplaces like Amazon and Apple’s App Store into crypto onramps, where players like Coinbase and MoonPay step in as MORs to convert fiat into stablecoins while absorbing fraud and dispute risk. This piece unpacks why MORs are back, who is leading the charge, and why Stripe’s entry signals a broader shift in how global and digital commerce will be structured.

I was at Stripe Tour New York last week, where Stripe introduced Managed Payments, a Merchant of Record solution. For payments nerds, this is not news. MORs have been around for decades. Digital River, one of the original providers, filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. But the revival of the model, led by Stripe and others, signals something important: MORs are making a comeback as commerce becomes more global, digital, and complex.

What does a Merchant of Record do?

At its core, an MOR steps in as the “official seller” of a product or service and takes on responsibilities most merchants do not want or cannot afford to handle themselves. The big four are:

1.Global payment optimization
In many countries, you need a local entity and bank account to accept payments. For global companies, this is painful but doable. For smaller ones, nearly impossible. An MOR solves this by processing payments through their local entity and remitting funds back to you. The added benefit is that you save on interchange, since the transaction is local-to-local (the MOR and cardholder are in the same country).

2. Tax collection and remittance
VAT, GST, sales tax—the messiness of indirect tax is legendary. If you are a smaller merchant, the compliance burden is overwhelming. An MOR collects and remits those taxes on your behalf, letting you stay focused on growth.

3. Fraud prevention
Fraud is inevitable and expensive to manage in-house. MORs benefit from scale: they already run sophisticated risk operations across massive transaction volumes. Routing through them shifts the liability away from you.

4. Dispute management
Chargebacks are part science, part art. Knowing which disputes are winnable requires expertise and data. Unless you are operating at scale, it is rarely worth hiring a dedicated team. An MORabsorbs that headache.

The Trade-Off
If this all sounds too good to be true, here is the catch: cost. MORs charge more than a standard PSP because they take on more risk and operational overhead.
But if you are selling SaaS, digital goods, or anything high-margin, especially in the early days, outsourcing to an MOR makes a lot of sense. Even for physical goods, if your margins allow, an MOR frees you to focus on growth.
Take Amazon’s third-party marketplace. Amazon is not just an ecommerce marketplace to list products,  it is a super MOR. It optimizes payment acceptance, handles fraud, manages
disputes as the first line of defense, collects taxes, and even runs logistics. All at a cost, of course.

Who Are the MORs Today?

You have probably transacted with MORs without even realizing it:

• Marketplaces: Uber, Etsy, eBay, DoorDash, Amazon. If the platform name, not the seller, appears on your credit card statement, you are dealing with an MOR.
•  App Stores: Apple’s App Store is a textbook MOR. Developers gripe about the 30 percent fee, but in return Apple handles payments, disputes, fraud, and global payouts. As a consumer, you also benefit: managing subscriptions directly from iOS is seamless.
• Crypto Onramps: Coinbase, MoonPay, Ramp, Crossmint, BVNK  and many others often act as MORs. They take in fiat, handle fraud and disputes, and deliver stablecoins. In doing so, they leverage their licenses, risk models, and compliance infrastructure so the businesses that are taking stablecoins do not have to.

Why the Revival Matters

An MOR is essentially a proxy license to operate globally without the upfront cost and risk of building entities, teams, and compliance infrastructure in every market. The same logic drives “Employer of Record” models like Deel or Rippling in HR.
Zooming out, the MOR model is about aggregation of long-tail demand. By pooling many small merchants, an MOR achieves scale: better pricing, stronger fraud defenses, and more leverage with issuers and networks. Sometimes those benefits are passed back to you. As Stripe re-enters this arena, it is a clear signal: in a world of borderless commerce, merchants
do not just want payment acceptance. They want risk, tax, and compliance outsourced so they can focus on building products and acquiring customers.
The Merchant of Record, once a legacy relic, is suddenly very modern again.