Banks Win When They Connect Risk Signals Across the Life Cycle

This is what's next in payments, a PYMNTS podcast. Forward-looking insights from industry leaders on the trends and technologies reshaping payments in FinTech. In this episode, Trulioo CEO Vicky Bindra says the ability to unify high-quality data and apply good friction at the right moments is key to fighting fraud. Hi everyone, welcome to PYMNTS TV and welcome to what's next in payments for the month of February.

You know, as we head into the new year, the industry's defining story we don't think is going to be told in a strategy deck. It's going to show up in the single word leaders use to describe the year ahead. So for February and what's next in payments, we're asking senior executives across banking, fintech, merchants, and identity verification, which you'll hear about today, to name their word of the year. You can't use AI, you can't use crypto, but we we've broken that rule already.

So uh it's okay. Um, but their answers will reveal what's changing, what's urgent, and what winners will need to do differently in the months ahead. And here today, I am joined by Trulioo CEO Vicky Bindra. Vicky, thank you so much for joining us.

Looking forward to the conversation. Thank you very much. Um, thanks for having me in your show. So, Vicky, what what is your word or words?

Um, and and how does it relate to what your strategy is for 2026? I think we think that the word that will sort of you know frame 2026 is fragmented risk systems. The reason we say that is because you know, if you look at companies, they onboard sort of employees, they onboard, you know, both individual customers as well as companies and they're onboard suppliers, right? Then they do stuff in onboarding and they do things while they are managing risk and transactions going forward.

And the inability to manage data across the entire platform in a way that if a single bad actor comes in into one place, they can either stop it or they can actually reduce the hemorrhage across other platforms. The ability to do that at scale is, I think, going to define sort of how our space and risk is going to think about 2026. So one of the things that Trulieu has has done a great job of is presenting managing risk and managing identity as an opportunity rather than a business constraint, right?

So how does that how does that come into play with your words of the year? So I think part of it is really to understand that how do you use a particular method of looking at risk, but use it across the life cycle. So for example, when you're onboarding a customer, you take telephone signals to understand whether the customer is the right customer using the right device for sort of onboarding. There is no reason not to use those device signals, which are a great passive way of managing risk as they are conducting transactions or as they are interacting with the company so that you have a full log of where the customer is, because it gives you location as well as how the customer is interacting with you.

So the ability to use some of these risk signals across the platform and across the lifecycle is in our minds how we can help customers manage their platform integrity better. So, Vicky, if if if a company does business with Trulieu and they are in the context of transactions, what are the changes they're going to see? In some of the work you've done in 2025, what are some of the changes that companies saw that were positive? I think for us, what we've evolved from being an identity company first to help them do complete onboarding, which means not only answering the questions, you know, is it John, but saying, is it John, John of fraud or is he being frauded?

And is John credit worthy? And now what we want to help companies with is answer the question, is it now truly John who's interacting with us and whom we are managing day to day? Interesting. So, Vicki, um, I I've asked you this question, I I think at this time last year, but what what are some of the things that are keeping you up at night as as you get into 2026?

Listen, for for us, uh what keeps us night is a lot of a lot of sort of our customers' issues because we we worry about them in terms of managing risk in an integrated manner so that uh you know they are able to spot issues as and when they arise, and we help them with the technology, with the data and the platform. But then if you ask a question to us in particular, like as truly what keeps us at night is the integrity of data. Because the data we have that we are using to help our clients manage risk, to ensure that that is completely robust.

It's renewed as quickly as any source can renew it and make sure that all of our fraud and risk signals are working to the best ability, that is what keeps me up at night. Okay. A worthy, a worthy goal. So integrity of data, is that one of the pressure points you feel like your clients feel?

I feel they do because uh honestly, if you think about like the data business, and we think of ourselves as as primarily being a data business that really helps our clients understand risk and fraud at different levels. Um, if you don't work hard at managing that integrity and making sure it advances in terms of quality every day, I think I think that's the biggest disservice you do to your clients. Okay. Interesting.

So, Vicki, um as as we get further into the year here, um, what are some of the table stakes you feel like you need for your business to compete? And what are some of the table stakes that clients are looking for when they do business with you? Yeah. So I think for us, the table stakes are really that we manage life cycle, both risk and financial crime management for our clients.

Right? That's our table stakes. If we can't help clients onboard them, help them worry about the credit worthiness of their businesses, their onboarding, over time help them manage those clients in terms of either integrity of those clients or fraud, and then ensuring that they renew the right clients. If we can't do all of those in an embedded, embedded manner with our clients, like to us, that's table stakes for 2026 and where we want to get to.

So one of the things we we talked about in the past, Vicky, is the concept of good friction. Um, you know, is is onboarding part of that? Is is is is onboarding something where you need to have the right amount of friction to get it done right? Yeah.

Yeah, I think listen, um onboarding or you know, ongoing friction is is completely a valid perspective, not only just for onboarding, but even ongoing transactions with a customer. So let's think about a customer where you are not sure whether the customer is living in the right place, he or she has mentioned because your data is not confirming that. Many times then you have to ask them for their records, such as a driving license or a selfie. When you're doing that, you're adding a little bit of friction in the process, but it's good friction so that you're enhancing the number of customers you can onboard.

You're also enhancing the integrity of the data you have within yourselves to be able to confirm that yes, you've got the right clients. Now, you've got to do it in a way that that is done exclusively where you want to verify things as opposed to doing it blanket, because then you're adding a lot of friction and you will sort of you know reduce your approval rate. So we work on three metrics. One is we want to improve approval rates of getting in customers and transactions.

Secondly, we want to reduce false positives so that it's less work on the client side, and we definitely want to reduce losses. So if you look at all of these three metrics together, you get to the right answer for balancing friction versus really improving throughput and performance. Very well said, Vicky. Vicky, last question.

Um, we've talked about the metrics, and those are great. Conceptually, if you had to define success at the end of this year for truly you as well as your clients, what would it look like? So I think for us, listen, uh, this is our first year we're doing complete integrated through onboarding and transactions. So I would say if we could embed ourselves in the end-to-end platform for five out of our top 15 clients, that would be significant success for us in not only demonstrating that we have the capability, but also ensuring the integrity on our clients' platform.

All right, that's gonna do it for this episode of What's Next in Payments. My guest has been Trulioo CEO, Vicky Bindra. Vicky, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you so much, John.

Really appreciate it. That's it for this episode of the PYMNTS Podcast. The thinking behind the doing, conversations with the leaders transforming payments, commerce, and the digital economy. Be sure to follow us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

You can also catch every episode on pymnts.com/podcasts. Thanks for listening.