Mastercard Identity Account Opening Solution

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This guide presents a technical overview of our Mastercard Identity Account Opening solution, available for integration through Workflow Studio.

Introduction

Mastercard Identity Account Opening is a verification and fraud prevention solution designed to securely and efficiently onboard new customers.

The solution helps verify identities and assess fraud risk by providing predictive data insights and risk analysis through the evaluation of five key customer attributes – name, email address, phone number, physical address and IP address.

Based on the evaluated risk, users can be funnelled down the appropriate verification path; a lower friction route for low-risk users, or a higher friction route with additional identity verification checks for those who pose a potential risk or are suspected fraud.

During onboarding, an end user submits their personal information for verification, which is consumed by the solution's Identity Engine to assess the validity and consistency of these identity elements. This includes:

• validity checks on the applicant's details such as email, phone number and address
• match statuses to confirm that the email, phone number and address provided in the application are associated with the applicant's name
• enriched phone number, email and IP metadata to gain insights into the inputs (phone line type, phone carrier, IP geolocation, email domain creation date)

The solution also responds with risk scores to assess the risk of the holistic digital identity, previous usage of identity elements and the risk of a provided IP address.

Descriptions of the three risk scores evaluated are detailed in the table below:

For Identity Risk and IP Risk, a lower score value indicates that the identity elements are consistent, legitimate and have a strong history of trustworthy use. This suggests the user is likely genuine. A higher score value signals potential fraud, such as mismatched or synthetic identity elements, suspicious IP behaviour or newly created contact details.

By contrast, a higher Network Risk score value suggests the identity is well-established and likely legitimate, posing minimal risk, while a lower score value indicates potential fraud.

These scores can then be used to make decisions regarding the need for additional identity verification checks. For example:

• users evaluated as low risk can be deemed as verified, and bypass additional verification checks
• those who are assessed as posing a potential risk could for example be required to undergo a document and biometric verification before being approved
• all suspected fraud would require a high friction route where identities are verified manually by a fraud expert

This triaging process is particularly useful for markets where document and biometric verification requirements are minimal and can be easily skipped to simplify onboarding and provide a smoother customer experience.

Mastercard Identity Account Opening task

To run a risk assessment, a dedicated Mastercard Identity Account Opening task should be added to a Studio workflow in the Workflow Builder.

The workflow task takes as input data the five elements that the solution evaluates to determine a risk score - name, email address, phone number, physical address and IP address. This information about the applicant can be sourced either from a Profile data capture task, or from custom workflow input data. Email address, first name, last name and phone number are mandatory inputs, while the physical address and IP address are optional.

The five identity elements are configured as workflow inputs

The Studio task queries the Mastercard Identity Account API, which returns the evaluated risk scores. The threshold of acceptable risk based on the score that is returned can be configured by clicking on the task and accessing the right-hand panel of the Workflow Builder.

Configuring the risk threshold

Once this threshold has been determined, a logic task can be configured to route applicants along the appropriate identity verification path.

In the example workflow below, low risk users are routed through an Identity report and a Watchlist: AML report, bypassing any further verification. High risk users require additional verification checks, so are routed through a range of other verification signals prior to approval. Those users who are evaluated as posing a fraud risk are routed directly towards manual review.

Mastercard Identity can funnel applicants down an appropriate verification path

For geographies where document and biometric verification is mandatory (such as the European Union), Mastercard Identity can be deployed as an additional assessment of potential fraud, illustrated in the example workflow below.