Identity
Overview
If you can solve identity in payments, the rest is just accounting.
Straddle Identity is a graph-defined identity engine that instantly verifies customers while detecting fraud patterns across hundreds of predictors. Built directly into the customer creation flow, Identity eliminates the complexity of managing separate KYC, AML, and fraud prevention systems—delivering 98% instant risk decisions without requiring selfies or manual reviews.
A customer resource can represent either a person or a business. The customer resource helps manage payments, linked wallets, transaction history, identity verification, and payouts between your application and your users.
This endpoint provides:
For detailed information on customer management and identity verification, refer to the Customers API Reference.
Why Identity Matters for Payments
Traditional payment systems treat identity verification as a compliance checkbox. Straddle takes a different approach: by solving identity first, we enable:- Instant onboarding: Sub-second verification decisions for 98% of legitimate users
- Fraud prevention: Detect synthetic identities, account takeovers, and first-party fraud before they impact your platform
- Regulatory compliance: Automated KYC/AML screening that exceeds Patriot Act and FinCEN requirements
- Network intelligence: Leverage consortium data to identify risks invisible to single-provider solutions
How Straddle Identity Works
Every customer creation automatically triggers our comprehensive identity verification pipeline:- Real-time verification against authoritative data sources
- Risk scoring using ML models trained on millions of outcomes
- Watchlist screening against global sanctions and PEP databases
- Continuous monitoring for changes in risk profile post-onboarding
Features
Identity
Identity
- Fraud: Straddle employs a machine learning model trained with hundreds of predictors to detect the likelihood of identity fraud. Provides 98% instant risk decisions without the need for selfies.
- Synthetic Identities: Purpose-built and trained with consortium data to tackle fake and randomized synthetic identity patterns. Produces highly accurate, real-time, actionable risk scores and reason codes, with 90% auto-capture in the riskiest 3% of users.
- Email / Phone / Address Risk: Provides a risk score and correlation value for email addresses, phone numbers, and physical addresses. Risk scores use ML models trained on specific variables and layered with 800 million rows of known good and bad outcomes to predict the likelihood of fraud.
- Device Risk (Coming Soon): Predicts risk associated with a device using data attributes such as IP, geolocation, device type, and device software. Device is the first application fraud solution that “binds” a device to the individual using it to counter application fraud and validate customer logins.
KYC
KYC
Know Your Customer (KYC) matches consumer-provided PII against the closest single identity on record or best-matched entity and returns a true or false value indicating the likelihood of a match. KYC is a legal requirement for financial institutions and financial services companies to establish a consumer’s identity and identify risk factors.
Straddle KYC is accurately auditable and fully compliant with Section 326 of the US Patriot Act, the Customer Identification Program (CIP), and FinCEN’s expanded Customer Due Diligence (CDD) program.
AML and Watchlist Monitoring
AML and Watchlist Monitoring
Global Watchlist Screening with Monitoring identifies risk by matching person and non-person entities against sanctions and enforcement lists, as well as Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) and adverse media registries worldwide.
Features
- Sanctions and Enforcements Screening: Screen consumers and businesses during onboarding to identify if they are sanctioned or flagged by enforcement authorities.
- PEP Screening: Screen individuals against PEP lists to identify those who could pose a higher Anti-Money Laundering (AML) risk.
- Adverse Media Screening: Protect your company’s reputation by identifying individuals associated with news items related to financial crimes.
- Real-Time Monitoring: Continuously monitor existing customers in real time to determine if they appear on updated sanctions or PEP lists.
OFAC SDN and consolidated lists
US, Canada, and global lists
Enforcement lists
311 Special Measures
OIG exclusion lists
EPLS, HIDTA, HIFCA
Synthetic identity fraud occurs when genuine information is merged with fabricated information to create a new synthetic identity. Businesses in the US are projected to lose $5.8B in 2024 to synthetic identity fraud.
People make payments
The first step to process a Straddle payment is to create a customer to represent an end-user and their information.You can use Identity as the first step in a payment journey or as a standalone verification service.
Creating a Customer
To create a customer and initiate identity verification, use the Create a Customer API endpoint:Reviewing Identity Verification Results
After creating a customer, you can review the identity validation results to assess risk and compliance. Use the Review a Customer’s Identity Validation Results endpoint:Integration with the Core Data Model
Identity verification is seamlessly integrated into the core customer data model. When you create or update a customer, identity verification processes are automatically triggered, ensuring real-time risk assessment and compliance checks. By incorporating identity verification into the customer lifecycle, Straddle enables you to:Prevent Fraud
Detect fraudulent identities before processing payments.
Ensure Compliance
Meet KYC and AML regulatory requirements effortlessly.
Streamline Onboarding
Provide a smooth experience for legitimate users while mitigating risk.