Galileo Launches Instant Account Verification and Machine Learning Risk Score to Secure Financial Transactions Amid Escalating Cyber Threats

By: Galileo Financial Technologies via Business Wire

September 10, 2024 at 08:00 AM EDT

New tools deliver real-time fraud detection for fintechs, banks and businesses and maintain frictionless account experiences for customers

Galileo Financial Technologies, a leading financial technology company and a subsidiary of SoFi Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: SOFI), is delivering fintechs, banks and businesses new ways to fight fraud with the launch of Galileo Instant Verification Engine (GIVE) and Transaction Risk GScore.

As digital transactions surge and cyber threats evolve, these tools offer fintechs, financial institutions and businesses advanced real-time fraud detection and risk management capabilities, addressing an industry in which 63% of financial firms reported an increase in fraud, with digital channels contributing to half of the total fraud losses.

Galileo Instant Verification Engine

Galileo Instant Verification Engine (GIVE) provides real-time verification of external bank accounts and ownership. Whether used as a standalone product or integrated with the Galileo Payment Risk Platform (PRP), GIVE delivers real-time insights that help businesses prevent fraud by quickly verifying account existence, status, and ownership before processing transactions.

GIVE is further enhanced by its integration with the Galileo Payment Risk Platform, which uses a sophisticated Transaction Decision Rules Engine. This engine applies customizable models, rules and profiles to each transaction, allowing for real-time, automated fraud prevention decisions tailored to the specific needs and risk appetite of each business.

The key benefits of GIVE are:

Instant Account Verification: GIVE instantly verifies external bank account information, confirming its existence, status, and risk signals. This enables Galileo clients to make informed decisions when linking accounts or processing transactions, such as determining account status and risk associated with the account.
Instant Identity Verification: GIVE ensures that only authorized individuals can transact by verifying the ownership of external bank accounts. It matches the account holder’s name and personal information — such as social security number (SSN), date of birth, and address — against the provided owner details, which is particularly useful for preventing identity fraud.
Account Risk Profiling: By leveraging machine learning, the Galileo Instant Verification Engine generates risk scores that assess the probability of ACH returns and non-sufficient funds (NSF) issues, providing a comprehensive view of account reliability. This enables businesses to predict funding issues and take proactive measures to prevent them.
Seamless User Experience: GIVE supports “me-to-anyone” and “anyone-to-me” use cases without requiring customers to input their credentials for external accounts, ensuring a frictionless and secure transaction process.

The Galileo Instant Verification Engine significantly reduces the risk of fraud by providing real-time verification of external bank accounts and ownership, cutting verification times from days to seconds. This minimizes customer drop-offs — reducing abandonment rates from nearly 50% based on a traditional method such as MDA (Micro-deposit Authentication) to as low as 1% — and delivers a smoother, more reliable customer experience across multiple channels, including ACH, FedNow, Wires and check deposits.

Transaction Risk GScore

Transaction Risk GScore is a machine-learning-based risk score that assesses the risk of card transactions in real time. By analyzing multiple data points, such as user behavior and transaction patterns, GScore enables financial institutions, fintechs and businesses to detect and respond swiftly to potential fraud, reducing losses and ensuring more efficient operations.

GScore supplements the existing enhanced capabilities in Payment Risk Platform by adding a layer of fraud signals while allowing the client to determine the risk appetite based on the multiple model responses. GIVE and GScore are designed with scalability in mind, ensuring they can grow alongside your business.

Whether transaction volumes increase or a company’s business expands into new markets, these tools provide consistent protection and seamlessly integrate with existing systems, minimizing disruption while maximizing fraud detection. This feature gives Galileo clients greater control over transaction validity, enabling them to fine-tune fraud prevention measures to meet their specific needs. GScore is available to clients using the Galileo Payment Risk Platform.

Why GIVE and GScore Matter

The Galileo Instant Verification Engine and GScore empower financial institutions, fintechs and businesses to navigate the complexities of an increasingly digital financial landscape, reducing fraud, improving operational efficiency, and delivering a seamless customer experience across multiple payment channels.

"These tools represent the future of secure financial transactions," said David Feuer, Chief Product Officer at Galileo Financial Technologies. "By harnessing advanced machine learning and real-time data, we're setting a new standard for how businesses safeguard their customers and their operations."

For more information on how to integrate these fraud prevention solutions, please visit

https://docs.galileo-ft.com/pro/docs/about-galileo-instant-verification-engine.

About Galileo Financial Technologies

Galileo Financial Technologies, LLC and certain of its affiliates collectively comprise a financial technology company owned and operated independently by SoFi Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: SOFI) that enables fintechs, financial institutions, and emerging and established brands to build differentiated financial solutions that deliver exceptional, customer-centric experiences. Through modern, open APIs, Galileo’s flexible, secure, scalable and fully integrated platform drives innovation across payments and financial services. Trusted by digital banking heavyweights, early-stage innovators and enterprise clients alike, Galileo supports issuing physical and virtual payment cards, mobile push provisioning, tailored and differentiated financial products and more, across industries and geographies.

Galileo Financial Technologies, LLC is a technology company, not a bank. Galileo partners with many issuing banks to provide banking services in North and Latin America.