Knowing a bank account is real doesn’t mean you should trust the payment coming from it.
That gap is where ValidiFI aims Compass, a new decision intelligence layer announced today. The company is a provider of alternative data and predictive analytics.
Compass ties account validation to identity, ownership, fraud, relationship, and payment-risk signals. It all runs through one API, tailored to each customer’s use case. The goal is to show the risk behind an account or payment and point to the right next step.
Validation answers one question. Risk decisions need several.
Account validation has long done a solid job of confirming that an account exists, is open, and can be used in a transaction. But a confident decision requires more:
- Does the account belong to the consumer presenting it?
- Are there signs of fraud, suspicious behavior, or elevated payment risk?
- How likely is the account-and-payment relationship to perform as expected?
When those answers live in separate systems and workflows, you get blind spots, needless friction, and losses that didn’t have to happen. ValidiFI has numbers to back this up. In one recent customer analysis, accounts carrying risk signals that validation alone missed generated seven times more ACH returns.
One front door to the signals that count
Compass gives organizations a single point of access to ValidiFI’s intelligence, focused on the signals that matter to their decision process. Nobody has to wade through hundreds of individual attributes. Dynamic routing sends each inquiry to the right validation and intelligence sources, based on the data available and the workflow the customer has configured. The idea is to turn data organizations already collect into something they can act on.
John Gordon, ValidiFI’s CEO, framed it this way: “Organizations have been forced to evaluate transactions through disconnected signals, separate solutions, separate workflows, and separate decisions. We’ve learned that’s not enough. Organizations need a connected view of risk. Compass orchestrates those signals into a single picture of trust, giving clearer insight into the risk behind an account or payment while allowing intelligence to be applied within their own policies and workflows.”
What’s under the hood
Compass runs on ValidiFI’s predictive bank account and payment intelligence network. It pulls together dimensions of risk such as velocity, stability, recency, and behavioral patterns. Setup is hands-on: ValidiFI works with each customer to define the decision they want to improve, set a measurable baseline, and test relevant signals against historical outcomes.
Depending on the application and input data, returned signals can include:
- Account status and history
- Identity and ownership matches
- Contact-information risk
- Prior account relationships
- Velocity patterns
- Known fraud activity
The final configuration is shaped around the customer’s use case, risk tolerance, and demonstrated value. Weighing these signals together can help organizations cut fraud, improve payment success rates, speed up approvals, and strengthen customer experiences. Results vary by customer and use case.
A real account is only the starting line, and Compass is built for everything that comes after it.