Hot off the heels of Stripe’s announcement of their own Financial Connections anti-fraud tool, major online payments player Plaid is announcing a new suite of features designed to harness its trove of data to combat fraud for its users.
“Fraud is currently being solved in silos. Companies have a system for ID verification, a system for account funding, a system for account linking . . . But there is signal in the fringes,” said Alain Meier, Plaid’s Head of Identity.
Meier brings a unique perspective to Plaid’s new anti-fraud efforts. The former head of identity verification firm Cognito – a company purchased by Plaid earlier this year – Meier is now leading his new corporate home’s effort to leverage data sources including driver’s licenses and selfies to verify the identities of Plaid customers. This identity-checking feature is designed to use Plaid-collected data to be as quick and painless as possible.
On top of that, Plaid is set to release a feature called Signal, a risk assessment service that circumvents lengthy bank-to-bank transfer mechanisms while picking up on likely fraudulent transactions. As Uphold Chief Information Officer Christopher Adjei-Ampofo put it, “Plaid Signal provides unique data for risk assessment so we can make smarter, faster decisions.”
