Risk insights is currently in beta.
Risk Insights is an add-on feature, please contact sales@spade.com for more information.

Overview

Risk insights provide visibility into the potential risk of a transaction and the merchants involved. Our signals are designed to be leveraged during the authorization window to improve decisioning as well as for customer or account analysis. The insights returned are based on our counterparty data asset as well as extensive data analysis.
If you plan to use this data to prevent transactions from occurring you’ll want to ensure you’re sending us data in the authorization flow.

Understanding Risk Insights fields

Below we’ve provided a list of the fields we return in the riskInsights object.
FieldDefinition
High risk entityVery HighThe counterparty is known to engage in fraudulent practices
Irregular web presenceHighHas engaged in deceptive online practices or has irregular website structure or content
Negative online sentimentModerateNegative online consumer feedback associated with the counterparty
Card acceptance historySee definitionPossible values:
extensive(most)
established
stable
limited
very_limited (least)
null (no data)

Counterparties with lower levels of card acceptance history have a higher likelihood of chargebacks or fraudulent activity
Risky industrySee definitionIndustry is correlated with increased disputes (based on Spade industries)

Example: “Casinos and Gambling” will return a value of true

Using Risk Insights

Risk Insights are best used in combination with other risk and fraud signals when making authorization or account closure decisions. Additionally, Risk Insights should only be used when a counterparty match occurs. Below we’ve provided an example response for a known high-risk entity:
Example response
{
  "transactionInfo": {
    "type": "spending",
    "subType": null,
    "display": {
      "name": "Contentbodega.net",
      "categoryName": "Media",
      "graphic": "https://static.v2.spadeapi.com/categories/ff2e4086c1f14e368e086aadab182b19/light.png",
      "graphicSource": "category"
    },
    "thirdParties": [],
    "spendingInfo": {
      "channel": {
        "value": "digital"
      }
    },
    "transferInfo": null,
    "atmInfo": null,
    "isAccountVerification": null,
    "isPeerToPeer": null,
    "isDigitalWallet": null,
    "transactionId": "txn-1234",
    "recurrenceInfo": null,
    "riskInsights": {
      "irregularWebPresenceDetected": true,
      "negativeOnlineSentiment": true,
      "highRiskEntity": true,
      "riskyIndustry": false,
      "cardAcceptanceHistory": null
    }
  },
  "counterparty": [
    {
      "id": "f364863c-7266-30bc-aad1-7ddfbdf1edc2",
      "name": "Contentbodega.net",
      "legalName": "Gills Unlimited",
      "industry": [
        {
          "id": "004-000-000-000",
          "name": "Entertainment",
          "icon": "https://static.v2.spadeapi.com/categories/ff2e4086c1f14e368e086aadab182b19/light.png"
        },
        {
          "id": "004-008-000-000",
          "name": "Media",
          "icon": "https://static.v2.spadeapi.com/categories/ff2e4086c1f14e368e086aadab182b19/light.png"
        }
      ],
      "location": [
        {
          "id": "e713c5fa-1b31-3004-833b-4ce7a7b5c66b",
          "address": "776 Divina Vista St",
          "addressLine1": "776 Divina Vista St",
          "addressLine2": null,
          "city": "Monterey Park",
          "region": "CA",
          "postalCode": "91754",
          "country": "USA",
          "phoneNumber": "+18556600894",
          "latitude": 34.051158,
          "longitude": -118.13354,
          "matchScore": null
        }
      ],
      "matchScore": 92.37,
      "logo": null,
      "medianSpendPerTransaction": null,
      "phoneNumber": "+18556600894",
      "website": "contentbodega.net"
    }
  ],
  "transactionRuleInfo": null,
  "enrichmentId": "5d16d9ac-e91b-4ba7-bece-ec69c7aed4a9"
}
In the example provided, we’ve flagged the counterparty:
  • is a highRiskEntity
  • has irregularWebPresenceDetected
  • and has negativeOnlineSentiment
When one of our counterparty-focused fields is true, we have identified that the counterparty involved in the transaction has the characteristics of that field. However, a value of false for a field such as highRiskEntity does not guarantee that the merchant is not a high risk entity.

Feedback

We recommend using our feedback endpoints when a chargeback has occurred or when fraudulent activity related to the merchant has occurred.
  • enrichments/<enrichmentId/fraud
  • enrichments/<enrichmentId/chargeback
We collect the feedback you provide and use it to derive insights about the merchants and locations we return during enrichments, leveraging these insights to enhance our core enrichment API.