Alloy + NeuroID: Your first line of defense against fraud

Once upon a time, we lived in a land without data.

Before the digitization of financial services, people and businesses still banked, borrowed and transacted. But as there was no scalable method for recording and analyzing how these activities were occurring, the bulk of this signal went uncollected.

Today, we have data! Digital tools allow us to turn customer and market behavior into datasets, which institutions can use to stop fraud, improve underwriting and deliver better financial products to their customers.

But what if we’re still missing a lot of the signal?

“Pre-submit data'' refers to information gathered about an applicant before they submit their application (as opposed to post-submit, which includes the application itself). Pre-submit data offers the financial industry a new set of tools for preventing fraud and managing risk. That’s why Alloy is excited to launch a new partnership with NeuroID, integrating ID Crowd Alert and ID Orchestrator into Alloy’s identity decisioning platform.

With NeuroID, Alloy clients can see how users are engaging with an application from the moment they begin interacting with a form until the moment they click “submit”. NeuroID also provides proactive monitoring to alert of any changes in crowd-level behavior. We’re so keen on this concept that it’s a complimentary offering for all Alloy clients.* No, seriously. Read on to learn why we think this is a game changer for financial services.

Refreshing our perspective on fraud

When someone applies for a financial product, they submit data. For example, applicants provide their name, birthday, address, SSN, and sometimes income and employment data. Based on this information, we tap a number of our data providers to determine the probability of this applicant committing fraud. Say their submitted SSN doesn’t match up with the name they provided, that can indicate fraud. This is just a basic example! Institutions today have access to more tools and data sources than ever before to help outmaneuver more complicated fraud scenarios.

So why does fraud still happen?

Sometimes, fraud prevention measures are configured in such a way that clever fraudsters can find ways to exploit them. Other times, a fraudster will exploit vulnerabilities at another institution by, say, opening an account using a compromised email address or phone number, allowing them to respond to confirmation emails or texts without raising suspicion. This helps them appear legitimate when they apply for a product with your financial institution. The bottom line is that no matter how effectively you analyze applicant submissions, there’s likely someone out there who knows what you’re looking for—and therefore knows how to get around your defenses. (pause for dramatic effect) Let’s also call out the fact that you’re more than likely only looking at data the customer has input on their application during the decisioning process, known as post-submit data.

NeuroID takes a different approach. Instead of adding more data, more analytics, or tighter thresholds to improve your ability to evaluate applicants after they have submitted their application, NeuroID shines a spotlight on fraudsters (and genuine applicants!) when they least expect it: before they even click “submit”.

How NeuroID works

Picture this: you meet someone new at a summer cookout and ask their name. “Sure, one sec while I look it up,” they say and pull out their phone. You’re confused—why do they need to look up their own name?

By this point things are awkward, but you want to be polite. “So, what do you do for work?” you ask, and your new friend replies, “I’m a Senior Manager…” before taking a long pause and another glance at their phone. Seconds go by. This feels so uncomfortable that you start wondering if there’s food on your face or toothpaste on your shirt. “...At Alloy,” they finish abruptly after what felt like thirty seconds. Nervously, all you can think to say is, “Cool…” before you excuse yourself to get another helping of potato salad.

Here’s what makes this interaction bizarre. Information like name, address, and even email are so ingrained for most people that it seems odd if someone can’t provide it without hesitation. Unless they’re lying. This straightforward insight—that it’s weird for someone to look up their own name—is key to understanding what makes NeuroID’s tools so powerful.

Put simply, NeuroID lets you see whether an applicant is interacting with your web forms the way a normal, genuine person would. With NeuroID, you have the answers to questions like:

• Is the applicant typing in their info or copy and pasting it?

• Are they taking long pauses mid-word?

• Are they filling the fields sequentially or out-of-order?

• How long is it taking them to complete each field?

• Are they going back and forth between the PII fields and another window?

• Does the applicant’s behavior demonstrate that they are familiar with the data they’re providing, or does it imply they are looking it up as they go?

If you somehow forgot your name in a social setting, people would probably notice, right? Likewise, if someone working through your application is exhibiting unusual behavior that’s consistent with fraud or just plain suspicious, NeuroID will pick up on it and let you know. Taken in aggregate, these insights on user behavior comprise what NeuroID calls “behavioral data”. Behavioral data sheds light on both risky and genuine behavior at the individual level.

NeuroID also offers crowd-level insights, which allows you to see when multiple individuals or bots are applying for products using the same sketchy methods. Detecting these patterns can be a challenge for many institutions (even those using bot detection software), and fraud rings know how to exploit this fact at your expense. (Don't even get us started on how this would have been a game changer during the Paycheck Protection Program.)

Bottom line, we think behavioral intelligence will change how the financial industry combats fraud in the future. NeuroID is bringing this capability to Alloy’s clients today.

Alloy + NeuroID: how does it work?

Alloy clients enjoy the ability to customize workflows. Adding NeuroID’s behavioral data to your workflow will help prevent fraud, but it can also reduce the number of false declines that can keep you from onboarding legitimate customers.

At the product level, NeuroID offers two ways to incorporate behavioral data into your workflow:

Here’s the best part: you can use the signals from NeuroID’s products to help inform your Alloy workflows. If you’re unsure of when to add step up authentication (like document or device verification) into your existing workflows, NeuroID can offer insights to help make that determination. Hands down, this is an integration that can really elevate your client onboarding decisioning by segmenting the paths that genuine applicants take versus those that risky applicants take, known at Alloy as Journeys.