What is Risk?
Risk lets you check a customer's details instantly. This is done using credit bureau data, online footprint analysis and anti-money laundering databases instantly from your dashboard. Your customers will not need to upload a single document.
Use Risk to pre-screen applicants, make faster decisions, and only request documents from customers who actually need them.
Available checks
Type | Description | Required search fields |
Credit bureau (UK only) | Verifies name, date of birth and address against credit reference agency data from Infact (FCA-authorised) and public sources like the electoral roll. | First name, last name, date of birth, postcode, address |
Online footprint | Analyses digital presence across ~500 sources. A strong footprint signals the person is real, not a synthetic identity.
| First name, last name, email and/or phone number |
Anti-Money Laundering (AML) | Screens against ~280 international databases covering PEPs, sanctioned individuals and watchlists. | First name, last name, date of birth |
How to run a check using Risk
Go to the Risk tab in your dashboard (the lightning bolt icon)
Select one or more check types in the form
Enter the required details - the form options will change depending on what checks you have selected
If you are performing an Anti-money laundering check, you can also enable Alerts, allowing real-time ongoing monitoring for this person's profile.
Click the Run check button - you can see how many tokens the check will use
After a few seconds you will be taken to the results page. All of your past searches are visible to the right of the Risk form.
Understanding your results
Submitting a search query will return individual results for each check you selected,
Overview
The results from each check contribute to someone's overall risk profile, which we show in a summary dial. Hovering over the bar will show you which check the bar relates to.
A green bar shows that the check has passed
A yellow bar means a mixed result - not enough information to make a judgement
A red bar shows a failure for that check
We use each score to calculate the overall risk score.
Risk | What you'll see | Description |
Low |
 | A green shield in the middle, with green bars for every check. |
Raised |
 | A yellow eye in the middle, a mix of green and yellow bars. |
High |
 | A red warning icon in the middle, one or more red bars.
Strong risk markers found in one or more checks, so this person has a higher level of risk. |
Credit bureau
Using data from credit reference agency records, the person's name and address are searched to find matches. The score in the credit bureau section indicates the strength of the search result.
A partial match here isn't a failing score, it just indicates that the matches found were weaker or only partially matched.
Where available you will see the source of the matched data, including when that record was created and what details were found.
Control matching strictness
You can control how strict credit bureau matching is in your dashboard. On the Settings page open the Risk tab. Here you can toggle between two matching modes.
Default mode
Tolerant to minor inconsistencies for the best pass rate. Allows small differences (like formatting or address variations) and can still pass if date of birth is missing or only weakly matched.
Strict mode
More stringent matching criteria for higher accuracy and fewer false positives. Less tolerant of differences in name, date of birth, or address, so incomplete or inconsistent data will return partial matches or fails.
Online footprint
Checks an email and phone number presence across 500 sources, including social media profiles and data sources. More touchpoints indicate that the details are real and do not belong to a synthetic identity.
Risk score
Signals are weighted and used to calculate an overall score. A green dial shows a pass, and a red dial shows a fail. The score in the middle is out of 100. The white marker on the dial shows where the passing threshold is.
Connected detail
The online footprint check will sometimes be able to fetch details connected to an email or phone number. These details are calculated from related accounts and data lists, rather than from a single source. These should not be used as verification, but more like a sense check.
For email addresses, you may get a name.
For phone numbers, you may get an email address, which may or may not be redacted. A different email isn't always a bad thing: it's normal for people to have multiple email addresses.
Connected accounts
If an email has been used to create an account, it will be shown in the Connected accounts section. You cannot see more details about the profile, but knowing it exists is a good indicator that this is a genuine email.
Connected profile pictures
An email and its accounts will sometimes have profile photos connected. These photos are shown in the report, and they may help you know the email belongs to the right person.
Anti-money laundering (AML)
The person's name and date of birth are searched across ~280 international databases, covering sanctions, politically exposed persons, and watchlists.
The report will show both strong and weak matches, but the overall check will only fail if one or more strong matches are found. You can click the person's name to see more details about the matching profile.
API access
The updated Risk endpoint will soon be available via the Vouchsafe API.
Until then you can continue to use the Smart lookups endpoint. You can set custom thresholds and run checks programmatically.