Ekata Introduces Account Opening API

Ekata, a global leader in digital identity verification, introduces the Account Opening API, designed to take action on high-risk accounts to mitigate losses from synthetic identity fraud. The Account Opening API identifies potential bad actors from good customers during the online application process. Designed to support customer onboarding strategies, the Account Opening API:

• Secures personal lending – Avoids disappearance of illegitimate borrowers by preventing them from setting up an account with false or misleading information.
• Prevents credit bust-out – Takes proactive measures to stop bad actors from establishing presence and manipulating their accounts before it happens.
• Reduces application abandonment – Captures the opportunity to reduce friction and tailor a faster, easier and more efficient application process for low-risk applicants while ensuring data accuracy.

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Recent studies have found that synthetic identity fraud is the fastest-growing type of financial crime in the United States. In fact, it is estimated that more than 60% of fraud losses for banks stem from identity fraud, and 20% of that fraud is synthetic identity fraud. According to the American Bankers Association, synthetic fraud costs lenders more than $6 billion annually, and the average loss is estimated at $10,000 per account. Using a combination of valid qualifying information combined with fake secondary information, perpetrators cultivate these identities to defraud banks, causing charge-offs and losses for financial institutions. These attacks must be proactively addressed when bringing customers onboard.

“As more traditional personally identifiable information is compromised online, it’s easier for fraudsters to create and foster synthetic identities,” said Bhavana Mathur, Vice President of Product Management at Ekata. “This type of fraud is difficult to detect because aspects of the identity are valid, and often they slip through during the account opening process. Ekata’s Account Opening API uses static and dynamic data insights to help detect and prevent this type of cybercrime from the start.”

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Key features of the Account Opening API include:

• Identity risk score – Comprehensive risk score that combines dynamic data across five core identity elements (name, phone, email, address, IP) as well as their usage patterns.
• Identity network score – Predictive risk score built on usage patterns of identity elements across real-world queries from Ekata’s network.
• Network signals – Returns three proprietary signals to assess the riskiness of the location address (IP last seen), the phone (phone last seen), and the relationship of the phone and email provided (phone and email first seen).
• Minimal input requirements – Only requires two common inputs to initiate the verification process: either phone or email and IP address. All other inputs are optional.
• Scalability – Flexibility to support massive, sustained query-per-second volume requirements while reliably retaining low latencies.

“Cybercrime is more sophisticated than ever, but by utilizing dynamic identity elements and real-world usage patterns, issuing agencies have a better chance at detecting and deterring fraudulent accounts, while still allowing valid accounts without excess friction,” Mathur added.

The Account Opening API is powered by the industry’s fastest and most reliable tech stack which is built on an elite enterprise-grade infrastructure, fed by accurate global identity data from the Identity Graph, and differentiated with proprietary insights from the Identity Network.

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