Sardine Product Updates - Q2 2024

In Q2, we focused on making our platform faster and easier to use. We also released solutions for bank account verification, dispute management, international address verification, business screening, merchant risk scoring, and AML monitoring. 

Our team also contributed to the development of Sonar’s new Red Flag service, which helps banks and fintechs easily check if their customers’ data has been leaked in a breach. For instance, one of the latest bank breaches exposed the name, address, dob and SSN of customers. Even more, it exposed the name, address, account number and routing numbers of both the customers of the bank, as well as the counterparties who interacted with that customer. 

If you are a bank or fintech interested in preventing these impersonation attacks, send us a note. For example, we can let you know if a new account is being onboarded using those breached credentials, which can be a red flag indicating potential stolen identity fraud. Further, during ACH account validation, we can let you know if the account and routing numbers match breached credentials, indicating likely use of stolen data.

Now let’s dive into Q2 releases 👇🏽.

Fraud prevention

Bank Account Verification and Authentication: We added two new consortium partners to further improve the coverage of our real-time account validation solutions, including new internal Sonar consortium data. Now we have 99.92% coverage for verification at top-tier banks, around 98% for authentication at top-tier banks, and 85% for authentication at regional banks. Additionally, Sonar is working to expand coverage among community, regional, and sponsor banks, whose data is crucial for verifying accounts at fintechs.

Sardine’s account validation solutions are Nacha WEB debit-compatible. Verification uses bank routing and account numbers to check if the account is in good standing. Our authentication solution matches the account with the name, confirming the user is either the owner or an authorized user account.

International address verification: We now support international address verification for over 240 countries. This feature helps e-commerce companies identify fake addresses and high-risk shipping locations. Banks and payments companies can also use it to spot suspicious addresses during onboarding and international transfers. If you’re interested in using this feature, contact your account manager. If you’re interested in learning more about this solution, visit sardine.ai/contact.

Merchant risk scoring: For banks, processors, and marketplaces looking to safely onboard merchants, we now offer comprehensive merchant risk scoring capabilities, including:

• True MCC and NAICS codes: Identify and block prohibited merchants who misreport their codes on application forms.
• Merchant product tags: Confirm what merchants are actually selling, so you can block prohibited merchants, especially if they lied about their NAICS in your application forms.
• Acquiring volumes: Check if a merchant is lying about their acquiring volumes, or have volumes that don’t match their goods/services.
• Merchant reputation: Factor in any negative BBB reviews, social media commentary, and online reviews into your merchant due diligence.

If you’re interested in learning more about this solution, visit sardine.ai/contact.

Dispute management: Our new dispute management solution comes with several features to help you recover more money from chargebacks with fewer resources, including a GenAI copilot that helps automates evidence preparation and dispute filing.

• Custom templates: Migrate existing dispute templates or create new templates with over 47 
pre-configured variables for evidence packages.
• GenAI copilot: Generate an editable rich text document with all cardholder PII, identification and transaction-specific images and data pre-populated.
• Drag and drop: Easily add supporting evidence to strengthen your case.
• One-click filing: Directly submit evidence to your payment processor from within the dashboard, without needing to download a PDF.

If you’re interested in learning more about this solution, visit sardine.ai/contact.

Compliance

Business Advanced Sanction Screening: We’ve expanded our capabilities to include comprehensive business screening, enhanced sanctions, PEP, and adverse media checks. This supports both one-time checks and ongoing monitoring to identify when previously approved users appear on sanctions lists. Instead of rescreening users and incurring additional costs, Sardine allows you to enroll users for continuous monitoring throughout the year. 

Additionally, the business details page in our dashboard now displays Sanctions, PEP, and Adverse Media information, with the option to view detailed investigative PDFs by clicking on any row.  These capabilities are now included for all KYB customers. For more information about our business verification solutions, visit sardine.ai/contact.

AML Scenario Templates: We've added AML templates to simplify setting up ongoing routines that detect common AML scenarios. Routines are batch monitoring jobs that clients can easily configure by selecting a template from a dropdown menu and filling in the parameters. We currently support various scenarios, including Entity Specific Conduit, Structuring, Layering, Pass-through Transactions, Pass-through Transferred Percent, Transaction Funds Ratio, and Average and Total Amount. This feature is included for all AML monitoring customers. To access these templates, go to Routines in the dashboard and click on Templates.

Document Upload API: You can now attach any file to a customer's profile via our API. Once uploaded, these documents can be viewed anytime within the Customer Details page in the Sardine Dashboard. This feature is ideal for banks, fintechs, and marketplaces needing to perform enhanced due diligence and centralize all collected information. Available to users of our KYC and document verification solutions.

Enhanced Due Diligence (EDD): You can now create rules and conditions to trigger enhanced due diligence checks. When an EDD rule is activated, an alert will appear in your review queue, prompting the user to answer EDD questions and upload any necessary documents. This feature is available to users of our KYC and document verification solutions. For assistance with setting up EDD functionality, please contact your account manager.

Platform Updates

Omniscient search: Multi-org admins can now see and search through parent, child, and grandchild sessions by default on the customer intelligence page. We support elastic search style queries across hundreds of fields, including customer names, IP addresses, emails, and other granular data for your entire portfolio of merchants or fintech programs. You can even filter results by specific child accounts. This feature is available to all users with parent-child functionality.

Expert shortcuts: We’ve enhanced our search and navigation features to streamline your daily tasks. With Expert Shortcuts, you can now access crucial information like user profiles, transactions, or case details up to 10x faster. Just press CMD + K (or CTRL + K) to instantly launch a search and quickly navigate through your dashboard, helping you complete investigations and analyses more efficiently. This feature is included in the dashboard for all customers.

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