Sardine launches ‘Insights’ to manage risk between financial institutions, fintechs, and crypto companies

Sardine, the leading provider of fraud, compliance, and instant payment solutions, announced today a new product offering a real-time, comprehensive view of an entity’s risk based on its history transacting with cryptocurrencies, digital assets, and conventional bank products and services. Called Sardine Insights, the service aims to bridge data gaps between financial institutions, fintechs, and crypto companies to strengthen risk management and increase access to all segments of financial services.

The number of US adults who own crypto assets will surge to 34 million this year. As more consumers, businesses, and other entities use blockchain-based services, there is a growing demand to move money between traditional finance (TradFi) and decentralized finance (DeFI). However, these two systems remain siloed with limited exchange of risk-related information, enabling fraudsters to exploit significant visibility gaps.

The future success of financial services requires better alignment and collaboration between players in TradFi and Defi

So much so, there were $680 million in crypto fraud losses in 2021 – a 520% increase from 2020. This has led to a vicious cycle where financial institutions, who must protect their customers from potential fraud, block or limit connectivity to crypto and fintech companies, hampering their growth and preventing legitimate entities from transacting or moving money into services they want.

“The future success of financial services requires better alignment and collaboration between players in TradFi and Defi – Sardine aims to fill the visibility void,” said Ravi Loganathan, Head of Financial Institution Services at Sardine. “Providing visibility into an entity’s financial actions and history across both systems would allow all involved in a transaction to better protect shared customers. With Sardine Insights, we’re making proprietary data we’ve generated through our risk models available to any company with appropriate permissions so they can better assess counterparty risk when moving money.”

With Insights, users can call an API and receive a real-time response detailing risk scores, reputation levels, and device and behavioral intelligence for any applicable entity. Sardine has built this product within frameworks of applicable privacy laws and regulations.

“As payments become increasingly real-time, comprehensive risk assessments on any entity conducting a transaction in TradFi or DeFi is critical in keeping bad actors from causing harm especially when settlement is instantaneous, and there is no option for chargebacks,” said Soups Ranjan, CEO of Sardine. “We want to create an inclusive utility for the industry that improves collaboration between both systems and accelerates the development of tools to address common challenges. Insights is the first step in overcoming this growing industry challenge.”

This new product announcement comes on the heels of rapid customer growth and funding news, including raising $51.5M in Series B funding in September led by Andreessen Horowitz with strategic investments by Visa, Cross River Bank, Experian, and other financial institutions