Radar for PlatformsPublic preview

Radar for Platforms uses machine learning from millions of processed payments to generate risk scores for individual transactions and connected accounts as a whole. Each score receives one of the following risk levels: normal, elevated, highest, or not assessed.

Risk scores and levels

Stripe enables its connected account risk levels by default as connected account-level rules in your Radar rules page. Stripe identifies connected accounts scored as highest or elevated for review. We base this on their probability of financial loss because of fraud or insolvency risk. The score correlates to the probability that an account would cause losses to your platform.

• highest risk, or a score of 90 or higher, indicates a probability of over 90% .
• elevated risk, or a score of 50-89, indicates a probability of 50% to 89%.

Account risk scores and levels update each time a new event occurs, such as a transaction or a change in business information. Stripe also provides risk indicators to explain the assigned risk level, such as transaction patterns, connected account behavior, or connected account information that matches previous fraudulent activity. Transaction risk scores and levels behave the same for platforms as for direct Stripe accounts.

Custom rule creation

You can customize the criteria for both connected account and transaction rules to suit the unique risks of your business. You can take one of the following actions when creating your rules:

Transactions

• Request 3DS
• Allow
• Block
• Review

Connected accounts

• Raise a review
• Pause payouts and raise a review

For a complete list of supported attributes in rule creation, see our transaction rule attributes and connected account rule attributes.

Connected account reviews

After you write your Radar rules, we alert you when any of your connected accounts match a rule by highlighting these accounts on your Home page. Go to either the Radar rule match queue of your accounts list view or the Reviews tab in Radar to view accounts that match any of your rules. You can filter this list by the matched rule and risk level assigned.

Select an account from the connected account review list to see its details page. This page shows:

• Account status
• Current enablement status of payments and payouts
• Required actions for the account
• Account balances

From here you can view the Risk tab for that connected account. Your team can use this page to assist with investigating financial risks. This page has the following features to help with your review:

• Agent-generated risk indicators
• Risk metrics charts
• Recommended next steps
• Risk history log with note taking capabilities

Risk metrics

The Risk metrics section highlights risky trends or anomalies using the following visualizations:

• A time-series graph of the count and volume of payments, disputes, declines, or refunds
• Time-series graphs for dispute rates, refund rates, and failure rates
• A filter to adjust the time period shown in the graphs
• A filter to show metrics by either count or volume

Dispute and refund data reflect the occurrence date of the dispute or refund, not the underlying transaction date. For example, hovering over the January 5 date on the disputes graph shows you the number of disputes opened on January 5, not the number of transactions on January 5 that were subsequently disputed. Also, the disputes graph shows the count of disputes, not the number of transactions disputed. A customer can file multiple disputes on a single transaction.

Failed payments typically include issuer declines, Radar declines, and failed API calls. Declined payments in the Risk metrics charts include only issuer declines and Radar blocks. We don’t consider failed API calls risky, so they’re excluded.

Risk indicators

If Stripe detects a risk level of elevated or highest on the connected account, our agent explains the risks we see with risk indicators to help you investigate. Then you can make an informed decision to confirm or deny the account risk. Examples of indicators include:

• Related suspicious accounts in the Stripe network
• Suspicious business information and account or transaction activity
• Mismatches between business location and login location

Risk history

The Risk history section shows previous reviews raised on the account and the actions your platform took to address them, such as pausing payouts and charges, setting reserves, and rejecting accounts. Your team can also take notes in this section for future reference.

To research risk further, request that connected accounts verify their government-issued identity document and selfie. Stripe Identity is available as an add-on and can help reduce fraud risk.

1. On the connected account details page, click the overflow menu and choose Request information.
2. In the dialog, select Identity document from the Information drop-down.
3. Set the consequence of not completing the verification before the deadline by selecting Pause payouts or Pause payouts and payments from the Enforcement drop-down.
4. Set the deadline for completing the verification using the Condition drop-downs. You can define the deadline as a time limit or as a total lifetime volume. To enforce the consequence immediately, select Time limit and Immediately.
5. Click Send request to immediately add the requirement to the connected account and display a remediation link that the account can use to fulfill the requirement.
6. Click Copy to provide the link to the connected account in your communication, if needed. Depending on your Stripe integration, Stripe might automatically notify the connected account of the requirement. If your platform automatically sends account links based on account.updated webhooks, it might automatically notify the connected account.

You can take the following actions against a connected account by clicking the overflow menu on the connected account details page:

• Pause payments
• Pause payouts
• Reject the account (which also pauses payments and, optionally, payouts)
• Set reserves

When a connected account has a Radar rule match, to close the review, you must either reject the account or dismiss the review.

Reject a connected account

Rejecting the account disables payments (and optionally, payouts). Stripe uses this risk factor to continue to improve our detection of financially risky accounts. Choose one of the following reasons as your primary determination of risk:

• fraud_card_casher: The business’s behavior suggests they’re processing several stolen credit cards in a short amount of time with the intent of cashing out. For example, the business is both the buyer and the seller and uses stolen credit cards to quickly buy a large volume of goods.
• fraud_card_tester: The business processes small (often in 0 USD - 5 USD range), repeated transactions (which often fail) from stolen credit cards in a short amount of time.
• fraud_no_intent_to_fulfill: The business scams legitimate cardholders by tricking them into making purchases the business has no intention to fulfill or intends to fulfill with low quality or fake goods.
• fraud_other: You aren’t sure which fraud bucket qualifies. For example the business’s KYC data looks fake.
• credit: The business is legitimate but at risk of delinquency.
• terms_of_service: The business is prohibited, or has other terms-of-service violations.
• other: You’re rejecting the business for any reason unrelated to fraud, credit, or terms-of-service risk.

Click Reject. Refresh the page to confirm the updated connected account status. If the account has a positive balance, your team can decide how to proceed. For example, you can transfer the balance to your platform to refund customers or to payout the balance to the business.

Dismiss risk review

If you determine that the connected account isn’t risky enough to reject, you can dismiss the review for that particular rule for a period of time. This makes sure your team doesn’t review the same accounts repeatedly, but also let you reevaluate later if the account continues to trigger the rule.

Set reserves

If you determine a connected account isn’t fraudulent but you’re concerned about their exposure (such as businesses that have long delivery windows or high dispute and refund trends) you can use a reserve plan to set aside funds from each transaction to reduce potential losses. Reserves automatically adjust your exposure and allow your platform to support businesses that might otherwise be too risky. See reserves to learn more.