My finance department wants to require for a merchant account that we both confirm that an EIN is valid and that the person using it is a documented beneficiary.

First, we do not require an EIN in order to open a merchant account. Second, while it may be a best practice to do this, I am not aware of any specific requirement that states we must perform these steps even if we do have an EIN on file.

We already perform ID verification for the person applying for an account at sign-up (CIP) and ongoing (EDD) . We consider that person as the merchant of record and the sole account holder, not any other person or entity (business or otherwise) with which that person may be associated (no co-signers allowed).

Is anyone aware of a requirement regarding confirming and validating EIN?

Ask them how do they propose to validate the EIN number? And if these are individuals, why are you using an EIN and not a SSN to begin with?

How do you complete your Merchant 1099K reporting without a TIN?

We confirm this information on every merchant through our processor. They provide a legal name & TIN IRS validation service and will notify us of any mis-match.

You could also request the EIN letter issued by the IRS.

How to validate an SSN/EIN? We subscribe to IRS eservices. It's free and the process is fairly easy. There's a Bulk TIN matching service. We upload new customers quarterly both commercial and individual and in less than a day, the results are returned. If there are exceptions, we contact the account holders to validate their TIN.

We upload new customers quarterly both commercial and individual and in less than a day, the results are returned. If there are exceptions, we contact the account holders to validate their TIN.

I am assuming you are limiting this to customers on which you are going to be required to file an IRS information return. Otherwise you are in breach of your agreement for the TIN matching process.