NewTech Friday: Alloy – Offering a full identity decisioning platform
Edwina Johnson is Head of Global at US fintech Alloy. She tells Qorus about the company and how they help banks and fintechs make safe and seamless fraud, credit and compliance decisions.
Edwina Johnson is Head of Global at US fintech Alloy. She tells Qorus about the company and how they help banks and fintechs make safe and seamless fraud, credit and compliance decisions.
What led to the creation of Alloy?
Back in 2015, when Tommy, Laura, and Charles first met while working at an ACH payments startup, they saw how difficult it was to launch financial products, specifically when it came to onboarding new customers. To prevent fraud and be compliant, companies had to identify and integrate individual data vendors — a costly process that took time away from engineers trying to focus on developing core product offerings.
As they did more research, Tommy, Laura, and Charles realized that implementing risk solutions was a pain point for many banks and fintechs who wanted to offer superb customer experiences while also defending against fraud attacks. Alloy was born from the desire to make both of those two outcomes possible
Seven years of hard work later, the current Alloy platform provides a single, easy-to-manage platform for financial companies to run KYC, AML, fraud and credit checks (and more). We do this by providing an API that connects to over 170 data sources, allowing clients to create custom processes tailored to precise fraud and risk outcomes.
Could you present Alloy’s offer?
Alloy has grown to meet the rising demand from financial institutions for tools to fight fraud and stay compliant while onboarding new customers in the US and abroad. Over 300 companies — including Ally Bank, HMBradley, Gemini, Ramp, and Evolve Bank & Trust — use Alloy’s API-based platform to automate identity decisions during account origination, monitor them on an ongoing basis, and make credit underwriting decisions. Alloy’s platform supports use cases across fintech, banking, and beyond, with more than 170 available data sources and coverage for 40+ countries.
Today, Alloy is a full identity decisioning platform. This means that financial companies can use Alloy to reach decisions related to customers’ identities.
For example: Alloy can help you curtail fraud by detecting when an individual is using a stolen identity. Or, you can use Alloy to make smarter credit underwriting decisions by pulling in a mix of traditional and alternative data sources. Other checks like sanctions screening, KYC, KYB, device analytics, step-up authentication, and more are also available on Alloy thanks to our extensive network of data integrations.
Essentially, Alloy tells you everything you ever wanted to know about your customers. This allows you to offer them a better experience and to protect yourself from fraud and compliance risk.
What’s coming next for Alloy?
2022 was a significant year for Alloy. We formally announced our global expansion in August and raised $52M in additional funding in September. We’ve also launched several important new features and integrations.
In 2023, we plan to support our existing clients’ growth while also exploring new opportunities and partnerships. New identity decisioning use cases are emerging all the time — for instance, embedded finance has created demand for effective identity solutions within new sectors like manufacturing, construction, and logistics. Many firms across these sectors are a great fit for us, and embedded finance is just one example of where we’ll look to build our presence in the coming year.
At the same time, the shifting regulatory landscape means that banks, fintechs, and everyone in between must be ready to meet future compliance requirements without disrupting their business. Our General Counsel, Gizelle Barany, joined Alloy in 2022 to lead our compliance efforts, and we expect to dedicate additional resources to building out our compliance expertise in 2023.
Finally, we’re embracing Alloy’s role as a global company. We want to make our platform available to companies who are cross-border as well as those operating in markets where identity verification is neither simple nor easy, because we think that overcoming fraud, compliance, and risk obstacles is a prerequisite for innovation. With our help, we hope the next wave of innovators will bring exciting products to market safely. Their future success means we’re doing our job.
What’s coming next for Alloy?
2022 was a significant year for Alloy. We formally announced our global expansion in August and raised $52M in additional funding in September. We’ve grown our headcount to more than 300 and launched several important new features and integrations.
In 2023, we plan to support our existing clients’ growth while also exploring new opportunities and partnerships. New identity decisioning use cases are emerging all the time – for instance, embedded finance has created demand for effective identity solutions within new sectors like manufacturing, construction and logistics. Many firms across these sectors are a great fit for us, and embedded finance is just one example of where we’ll look to build our presence in the coming year.
At the same time, the shifting regulatory landscape means that banks, fintechs and everyone in between must be ready to meet future compliance requirements without disrupting their business. Our General Counsel, Gizelle Barany, joined Alloy in 2022 to lead our compliance efforts, and we expect to dedicate additional resources to building out our compliance expertise in 2023.
Finally, we’re embracing Alloy’s role as a global company. We want to make our platform available to companies who are cross-border as well as those operating in markets where identity verification is neither simple nor easy, because we think that overcoming fraud, compliance and risk obstacles is a prerequisite for innovation. With our help, we hope the next wave of innovators will bring exciting products to market safely. Their future success means we’re doing our job.
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