> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.straddle.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Identity verification overview

> An overview of Straddle's identity verification platform, including KYC and KYB checks, fraud scoring, watchlists, and reputation data for ACH payments.

Straddle Identity is a graph-defined identity engine that instantly verifies customers while detecting fraud patterns across hundreds of predictors. Built directly into the customer creation flow, Identity eliminates the complexity of managing separate KYC, AML, and fraud prevention systems—delivering 98% instant risk decisions without requiring selfies or manual reviews.

## Why Identity Matters for Payments

Traditional payment systems treat identity verification as a compliance checkbox. Straddle takes a different approach: by solving identity first, we enable:

* **Instant onboarding**: Sub-second verification decisions for 98% of legitimate users
* **Fraud prevention**: Detect synthetic identities, account takeovers, and first-party fraud before they impact your platform
* **Regulatory compliance**: Automated KYC/AML screening that exceeds Patriot Act and FinCEN requirements
* **Network intelligence**: Leverage consortium data to identify risks invisible to single-provider solutions

## How Straddle Identity Works

Every customer creation automatically triggers our comprehensive identity verification pipeline:

1. **Real-time verification** against authoritative data sources
2. **Risk scoring** using ML models trained on millions of outcomes
3. **Watchlist screening** against global sanctions and PEP databases
4. **Continuous monitoring** for changes in risk profile post-onboarding

All of this happens seamlessly through a single API call to create a customer.

## Features

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Identity" icon="fingerprint">
    <ul>
      <li><strong>Fraud:</strong> Straddle employs a machine learning model trained with hundreds of predictors to detect the likelihood of identity fraud. Provides 98% instant risk decisions without the need for selfies.</li>
      <li><strong>Synthetic Identities:</strong> Purpose-built and trained with consortium data to tackle fake and randomized synthetic identity patterns. Produces highly accurate, real-time, actionable risk scores and reason codes, with 90% auto-capture in the riskiest 3% of users.</li>
      <li><strong>Email / Phone / Address Risk:</strong> Provides a risk score and correlation value for email addresses, phone numbers, and physical addresses. Risk scores use ML models trained on specific variables and layered with 800 million rows of known good and bad outcomes to predict the likelihood of fraud.</li>
      <li><strong>Device Risk (Coming Soon):</strong> Predicts risk associated with a device using data attributes such as IP, geolocation, device type, and device software. Device is the first application fraud solution that "binds" a device to the individual using it to counter application fraud and validate customer logins.</li>
    </ul>
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="KYC" icon="id-card">
    <p><strong>Know Your Customer (KYC)</strong> matches consumer-provided PII against the closest single identity on record or best-matched entity and returns a true or false value indicating the likelihood of a match. KYC is a legal requirement for financial institutions and financial services companies to establish a consumer's identity and identify risk factors.</p>
    <p>Straddle KYC is accurately auditable and fully compliant with Section 326 of the US Patriot Act, the Customer Identification Program (CIP), and FinCEN's expanded Customer Due Diligence (CDD) program.</p>
  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="AML and Watchlist Monitoring" icon="shield-check">
    <p><strong>Global Watchlist Screening with Monitoring</strong> identifies risk by matching person and non-person entities against sanctions and enforcement lists, as well as Politically Exposed Persons (PEP) and adverse media registries worldwide.</p>
    <h4>Features</h4>

    <ul>
      <li><strong>Sanctions and Enforcements Screening:</strong> Screen consumers and businesses during onboarding to identify if they are sanctioned or flagged by enforcement authorities.</li>
      <li><strong>PEP Screening:</strong> Screen individuals against PEP lists to identify those who could pose a higher Anti-Money Laundering (AML) risk.</li>
      <li><strong>Adverse Media Screening:</strong> Protect your company's reputation by identifying individuals associated with news items related to financial crimes.</li>
      <li><strong>Real-Time Monitoring:</strong> Continuously monitor existing customers in real time to determine if they appear on updated sanctions or PEP lists.</li>
    </ul>

    <CardGroup cols={2}>
      <Card title="OFAC SDN and consolidated lists" icon="list-check" />

      <Card title="US, Canada, and global lists" icon="globe" />

      <Card title="Enforcement lists" icon="gavel" />

      <Card title="311 Special Measures" icon="scale-balanced" />

      <Card title="OIG exclusion lists" icon="ban" />

      <Card title="EPLS, HIDTA, HIFCA" icon="building-shield" />
    </CardGroup>
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

<Note>
  Synthetic identity fraud occurs when genuine information is merged with fabricated information to create a new synthetic identity. Businesses in the US are projected to lose \$5.8B in 2024 to synthetic identity fraud.
</Note>

## People Make Payments

The first step to process a Straddle payment is to create a **customer** to represent an end-user and their information.

<Tip>You can use **Identity** as the first step in a payment journey or as a standalone verification service.</Tip>

A **customer** resource can represent either a person or a business. The customer resource helps manage payments, linked wallets, transaction history, identity verification, and payouts between your application and your users.

### Creating a Customer

To create a customer and initiate identity verification, use the [Create a Customer](/api-reference/customers/create) API endpoint:

<CodeGroup>
  ```bash theme={null}
  POST /v1/customers
  ```

  ```json theme={null}
  {
    "name": "Jane Doe",
    "email": "jane.doe@example.com",
    "type": "individual",
    "address": {
      "line1": "123 Main St",
      "city": "Anytown",
      "state": "NY",
      "postal_code": "12345",
      "country": "US"
    },
    "compliance_profile": {
      "date_of_birth": "1980-01-01",
      "social_security_number": "123-45-6789"
    },
    "external_id": "your_system_identifier"
  }
  ```
</CodeGroup>

### Reviewing Identity Verification Results

After creating a customer, you can review the identity validation results to assess risk and compliance. Use the [Review a Customer's Identity Validation Results](/api-reference/customers/review) endpoint:

```bash theme={null}
GET /v1/customers/{id}/review
```

This endpoint provides:

<ResponseField name="Identity Validation Results" type="object">
  <Expandable title="properties">
    <ResponseField name="risk_score" type="number">
      Assess the likelihood of fraud.
    </ResponseField>

    <ResponseField name="reason_codes" type="array">
      Understand specific factors affecting the decision.
    </ResponseField>

    <ResponseField name="watchlist_results" type="object">
      Identify any matches with global watchlists.
    </ResponseField>

    <ResponseField name="network_alerts" type="array">
      Detect any consortium alerts on the identity.
    </ResponseField>
  </Expandable>
</ResponseField>

### Integration with the Core Data Model

Identity verification is seamlessly integrated into the core customer data model. When you create or update a customer, identity verification processes are automatically triggered, ensuring real-time risk assessment and compliance checks.

By incorporating identity verification into the customer lifecycle, Straddle enables you to:

<CardGroup cols={3}>
  <Card title="Prevent Fraud" icon="shield-halved">
    Detect fraudulent identities before processing payments.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Ensure Compliance" icon="check-double">
    Meet KYC and AML regulatory requirements effortlessly.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Streamline Onboarding" icon="user-plus">
    Provide a smooth experience for legitimate users while mitigating risk.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

For detailed information on customer management and identity verification, refer to the [Customers API Reference](/api-reference/customers/create).