Sardine
Fraud-detection system that scores a payment as risky or safe while it's happening — checking the device, behavior and identity behind it — instead of catching fraud only after the money's already gone.
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Description
By the time a fraudulent payment gets flagged after the fact, the money's often already moved and hard to recover — the only real defense is catching it during the transaction itself. Sardine watches signals like how someone's device behaves, subtle patterns in how they type or move a mouse, and identity verification data, then scores the risk of a payment in real time as it's happening, so a fintech or bank can block or challenge it before it completes rather than investigating after the loss. Sardine covers device intelligence and behavioral biometrics (branded "True Piercing"), real-time fraud scoring across ACH, wire, SEPA, RTP, FedNow and Zelle payment rails, global KYC/KYB identity verification, account-takeover and bot detection, sanctions screening, and newer "agentic" AI features that automate fraud and AML alert reviews and investigations. It shares fraud-signal intelligence across a consortium of its customers, and counts major fintechs and financial infrastructure companies (Nubank, Intuit, GoDaddy, FIS, Deel) among its 450+ enterprise customers.
💬 Our review
The short version: Sardine's pitch is scoring fraud risk during the payment itself rather than after, and its adoption across a genuinely broad range of payment rails (ACH, wire, RTP, FedNow, Zelle) plus real fintech-infrastructure customers (Nubank, Intuit, FIS) suggests this isn't just a narrow point solution but something operating at real transaction volume.
The fraud-intelligence consortium — sharing risk signals anonymously across Sardine's customer base — is a genuinely valuable network effect specific to fraud detection: a device or behavioral pattern flagged as risky at one company becomes useful signal for every other company on the network, which a single-customer fraud model can't replicate. Layering identity verification (KYC/KYB) and sanctions screening alongside pure transaction fraud detection means a fintech can potentially consolidate multiple compliance vendors into one platform rather than running separate tools for each function. The honest caveat: several of Sardine's most impressive scale statistics (985 million consumers protected, 4.92 billion transactions processed, 6.2 billion devices profiled) are large enough that the underlying methodology deserves a direct question during evaluation, and its widely-cited sub-100ms latency figure wasn't found directly on the company's own site during this research — worth confirming current performance benchmarks directly rather than repeating older third-party figures. Against Unit21, which focuses more on the no-code investigation/case-management side of fraud and AML operations, Sardine leans harder into the real-time transaction-scoring layer itself — many financial institutions end up using both together rather than choosing one over the other.
💰 Pricing
📊 Global score
🤖 AI-enriched data
Pros
Scores fraud risk during the payment itself, across a broad range of payment rails
Fraud-intelligence consortium creates a network effect across its customer base
Consolidates fraud detection, KYC/KYB and sanctions screening in one platform
450+ enterprise customers including major fintech infrastructure (Nubank, Intuit, FIS)
Cons
Some headline scale statistics (billions of transactions/devices) deserve a direct methodology question
Widely-cited sub-100ms latency figure wasn't confirmed directly on the company's own current site
No public pricing, fully custom enterprise sales
❓ Frequently asked questions
- Does Sardine catch fraud before or after a payment completes?
- Before — it scores the risk of a payment in real time as it's happening (across ACH, wire, RTP, FedNow, Zelle and other rails), aiming to block or challenge suspicious transactions before they complete rather than investigating after the money has moved.
- What is the fraud-intelligence consortium?
- Sardine shares anonymized fraud-risk signals across its customer base, so a device or behavior pattern flagged as risky at one company becomes useful signal protecting every other company on the network.
- Does it do more than just transaction fraud detection?
- Yes — it also covers KYC/KYB identity verification and sanctions screening, letting a fintech potentially consolidate several compliance functions into one platform.
- Is it worth the money compared to alternatives?
- For a fintech or bank processing real transaction volume, the network-effect fraud intelligence and broad payment-rail coverage are worth evaluating seriously — ask directly about current latency and scale metrics rather than relying on older third-party figures during due diligence.
- Which tool should you pick for your case?
- Need real-time transaction fraud scoring across many payment rails plus identity verification: Sardine. Need stronger no-code fraud/AML case-management and investigation workflows: Unit21 — many institutions use both together.