ChainIT and RS Software announced a product alliance to bring risk-based authentication to account-to-account (A2A) payments. Card payments have had a shared framework for authenticating risky transactions for two decades through 3-D Secure. Instant payments, which settle in seconds and cannot be reversed, have never had a comparable industry-wide standard, a gap this alliance is designed to close.

Fraud losses on bank-transfer networks are running into the billions annually, and the volume is migrating: banks continue joining instant payment networks, and merchants are bringing pay-by-bank into checkout. The FTC counted more than $12.5 billion in reported consumer fraud losses in 2024, up 25 percent year over year, with more lost through bank transfers than any other payment method. Two dominant loss categories, account takeover and authorized push payment scams, both exploit the same weakness: identity is verified once, then assumed thereafter.

The alliance addresses this by evaluating identity and fraud risk continuously, on every transaction, in milliseconds. RS Software's fraudand risk platform, RS IntelliEdge™, scores each payment using behavioral, device, and contextual signals. ChainIT contributes biometric identity verification and Validated Data Tokens, cryptographically anchored credentials establishing who authorized a payment and whether they had the authority to do so. When a combined risk score crosses a threshold, the institution's own policies decide whether to require additional verification, hold the payment, or let it proceed.

The framework also extends to business payments, binding each payment to the agreement that authorizes it and flagging counterparty risk that onboarding alone can't catch. Throughout, the financial institution retains the final decision. The framework supplies the risk score, a plain-language rationale, and a tamper-evident audit record.

"Identity verification is the primary gateway for preventing fraud, and Fraud Prevention has become the Core of Trust in payments. We are excited to partner with ChainIT to provide integrated front-line attack in this multi-billion-dollar market opportunity," said Raj Jain, CEO of RS Software.

"Our role is to prove who authorized a payment and preserve the evidence in a form that supports dispute resolution," said Jeremy Blackburn, CEO of ChainIT. "RS Software brings the risk engine that turns that proof into action."