Mastercard, Sift, Plaid upgrade onboarding for financial entities amid rampant fraud

Mastercard, Sift and Plaid are each adding capabilities to their portfolios to help banks and other financial institutions cut their fraud risk from remote customer onboarding. Mastercard is doing so through a partnership, while Sift has expanded its platform with new features and Plaid is adding new sources of data to ensure the integrity of identity verification for new users.

Mastercard partners with Alloy

Technology-enabled fraud is an ever increasing and evolving threat for companies in finance or commerce and the new partnership involving Mastercard and Alloy, and the updates from identity verification and onboarding solutions from firms, attests to the commensurate ramp-up in defending against the risks while attempting to keep user friction to the minimum.

Mastercard has teamed up with identity and fraud prevention platform Alloy to launch a new global onboarding solution aimed at helping financial institutions and fintechs combat rising fraud.

The joint offering combines Mastercard’s digital identity verification tools with Alloy’s open finance-powered infrastructure for onboarding across channels. “Successful fraud prevention starts with a holistic approach to understanding identity,” said Parilee Wang, Chief Product Officer at Alloy.

“Our partnership with Mastercard will allow more financial institutions and fintechs to evaluate customer identities holistically.”

Fraud in the financial sector is rampant. According to Alloy’s 2025 State of Fraud Report, 60 percent of financial institutions and fintechs saw an uptick in fraud in 2024, prompting 93 percent to plan increased investment in fraud prevention this year. Nearly two-thirds (64 percent) intend to adopt identity risk solutions.

The new Mastercard Alloy solution integrates pre-configured Mastercard products directly into Alloy’s platform. Clients can access more than 200 risk and identity tools designed to reduce manual reviews, boost conversion rates, and ensure end-to-end coverage throughout the customer lifecycle.

“Fraud continues to be a significant challenge for financial institutions and consumers alike, underscoring the urgent need for robust fraud prevention measures,” says Dennis Gamiello, EVP, global head of identity, Mastercard.

“This joint onboarding solution will be a game-changer in the fight to reduce fraud and deliver a seamless and secure customer experience.”

Sift unveils new tools

Sift is rolling out a suite of new features aimed at businesses tackling rising fraud threats. The Fall 2025 update introduces pre-built workflows, enhanced policy abuse detection and expanded investigation capabilities.

The launch comes amid growing pressure on fraud teams to manage increasingly complex threats. Sift’s new pre-built workflow offers templates for industry-specific strategies to tackle payment fraud. According to Sift, these templates improve accuracy and efficiency at scale.

“The Fall ’25 release lets fraud teams deploy protection workflows in minutes, detect policy abuse before it impacts revenue, and investigate suspicious accounts with smarter, more intuitive tools,” says Raviv Levi, chief product and technology officer at Sift.

A major focus of the update is incentive abuse — fraud that involves loyalty programs, promotional offers and referral schemes. Sift provides new console functionality for businesses to proactively block first-party fraud and fake account creation before transactions occur.

The platform also introduces three investigation upgrades to give fraud teams deeper visibility into high-risk activity. Global Identity Search Filters enable advanced user-linking across Sift’s data network to help teams prioritize suspicious accounts and streamline case reviews.

The ATO Overview Dashboard tracks account takeover trends with reports on login behavior, including two-factor authentication and logins by notifications. The Historical Chargeback Import feature allows teams to upload past chargeback data to refine fraud models and accelerate AI-driven decisioning.

“We’re giving Sift customers more power to make better fraud decisions faster, cut spend, and protect revenue while also enhancing the consumer experience,” Levi said.

Plaid enhances IDV

Plaid’s August product updates introduces faster, more secure ways to verify users and streamline onboarding, according to the company, which raised $575 million in its most recent funding round. The updates span identity data access, fraud prevention and developer experience, all designed to help platforms build trust and reduce friction.

The identity verification product now supports verified account holder data from over 450 additional institutions, giving businesses broader access to essential details such as names, addresses, phone numbers and emails.

For higher risk users, Plaid has introduced DMV-backed identity verification. Businesses can now authenticate driver license numbers directly with DMV databases. Existing IDV customers can activate this feature within the editor.

Developers can benefit from a revamped OAuth registration experience that begins earlier and includes real-time status updates, requirement tracking, and clearer error messaging, Plaid revealed on its blog.

Article Topics

Alloy  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  fraud prevention  |  identity verification  |  Mastercard  |  onboarding  |  Plaid  |  Sift