Sonar is a real-time data consortium that helps financial institutions detect and prevent fraud across banks, fintechs, crypto platforms, and merchants.

As a member-driven utility operating under Section 314(b), Sonar enables trusted institutions to securely share risk insights. This collaboration helps members identify high-risk entities earlier, improve fraud detection, and protect customers across the financial system.

Modern fraud moves quickly across platforms, exploiting gaps between payment rails, account types, and business models. Sonar closes those gaps by aggregating risk signals from across the ecosystem, giving members a more complete view of counterparty risk before a transaction occurs.

Whether you’re a bank, fintech, or payment provider, Sonar helps you act faster, stop fraud sooner, and make more informed decisions.

​
Fraud is no longer isolated to a single platform or rail

Fraud doesn’t stay in one place. It moves across banks, fintechs, merchants, and crypto platforms, taking advantage of the blind spots between them.

A fraudster might open a synthetic account at a traditional bank to establish legitimacy. Once inside, they move money to a fintech wallet, then to a crypto exchange, then out through a merchant account—laundering funds at every step. Each handoff crosses a different institution, each with its own systems, rules, and view of risk.

Most platforms can only see what happens inside their own walls. But fraud doesn’t operate that way. A customer flagged for suspicious behavior at one institution can resurface at another with no history, no context, and no restrictions.

The rise of real-time payments, digital wallets, and alternative rails has only widened these gaps. Push payments are harder to claw back. Instant settlement leaves little time to react. And the lack of shared visibility means each institution is solving for only part of the problem.

As the ecosystem grows more complex, the risks compound. The tools that work within one platform no longer work across platforms. And without broader collaboration, fraud continues to slip through the cracks.

​
Sonar connects risk data across the financial system

Sonar makes it easy to check a counterparty’s risk across the broader financial ecosystem, so you’re not relying only on your own data to make critical decisions.

With a single API call, you can access real-time risk signals from a growing network of banks, fintechs, merchants, and crypto platforms. This allows you to identify suspicious entities, behaviors, or patterns that may have been flagged elsewhere – even if they’re new to your platform.

Sonar supports multiple payment rails, including credit and debit, ACH, RTP, FedNow, A2A, and peer-to-peer apps like Zelle, Cash App, and Venmo.

All data is anonymized and shared securely under Section 314(b) of the USA PATRIOT Act, GLBA, and FCRA. Members retain full control over their systems and strategies while collaborating within a governed, privacy-conscious framework.

Member use Sonar to:

  • Identify risk across rails: Understand the full context of a counterparty’s behavior, whether they transact via ACH, RTP, crypto, or cards.
  • Strengthen internal risk models: Enrich fraud and risk systems with cross-network signals to improve precision and reduce false positives.
  • Stop fraud earlier: Flag high-risk activity at onboarding, during account changes, or before funds move.
  • Collaborate with confidence: Connect with peers through a secure, compliant framework purpose-built for sharing risk insights.

By collaborating with the broader ecosystem, Sonar helps you strengthen your risk controls to catch fraudulent activity you wouldn’t catch alone.

​
Why join Sonar?

Joining Sonar gives you access to a deeper, more connected layer of fraud intelligence, without disrupting your existing systems.

  1. Boost your signals: Get access to risk scores, blocklists, device fingerprints, behavioral biometrics, and real-time signals from across the network.
  2. Improve AML and fraud investigations: Follow the movement of funds across accounts and platforms to uncover money mule activity, laundering patterns, and abnormal behavior.
  3. Start fast, with minimal effort: No integration required. Submit a phone, email, or account identifier and receive a real-time counterparty risk score.
  4. Tap into network effects: Your risk models improve automatically as new participants join and as more feedback is added to the network.
  5. Access more data with less effort: If an entity isn’t present in Sonar, you can automatically route queries to dozens of trusted third-party data providers.
  6. Get rewarded for participation: Members receive 25% revenue share for contributing risk decisioning feedback, turning collaboration into value.