Fideo Intelligence Brings “Adaptive Learning” and Graphing Technology to Credit Union Fraud Prevention

By John San Filippo

As fraud tactics become increasingly sophisticated—fueled by artificial intelligence (AI) and synthetic identities—credit unions find themselves in a difficult position. While the largest financial institutions can afford to implement any number of solutions to build a fortress around their data, smaller institutions often lack the resources to create comparable defenses. Chris Harrison, CEO of Fideo Intelligence, aims to bridge that gap.

Chris Harrison

Spun off from data company Full Contact last October, Fideo Intelligence is focused exclusively on fraud prevention. In July, the company launched its first direct-to-market product, Fideo Verify, designed to consolidate identity intelligence into a single application programming interface (API) that is accessible to credit unions and the fintechs that support them.

Harrison recently talked with Finopotamus about the company’s origins, the specific mechanics of “adaptive learning through graphing,” and why static data is no longer enough to stop modern criminals.

Bridging the Market Gap

Harrison noted that Fideo’s entry into the market was driven by a clear disparity in defense capabilities between widespread global banks and community institutions. “Smaller institutions like credit unions are seeing less and less comprehensive fraud detection, thus leading to blind spots that can be exploited by the bad actors.”

He emphasized that the threat landscape is escalating quickly, particularly regarding identity fraud. “Looking at this, there’s an escalating threat, specifically on the identity fraud side, through synthetic identity and impersonation scams.”

To combat this, Fideo Verify consolidates eight different categories of checks—including email, phone, synthetic identity combinations, breached identity, geolocation, and sanctions—into a single real-time call. “We want to make it really simple to use, but also consolidating a lot of the risk associated with identity into one easy-to-integrate API,” Harrison explained.

Beyond the “AI” Buzzword: The Power of Graphing

In a fintech ecosystem saturated with companies claiming to use AI, Harrison is careful to differentiate Fideo’s specific technological approach. He focuses on “adaptive learning through graphing,” a method where the company holds patents.

“AI is a very large umbrella term,” Harrison stated. “It’s almost meaningless when someone says that they’re an AI company.” Instead of a generic black box, Fideo uses entity resolution graphing. This technology visualizes data points (like emails, phones, or addresses) as “nodes” and the connections between them as “edges.”

“Graphs make it easy to visualize and analyze those relationships, and they reveal the patterns,” Harrison said. “We model devices and transactions and business entities and email addresses and fragments of identities in the graph to look for those kinds of anomalies.” This approach allows Fideo to detect subtle signals that rule-based systems might miss. “We take those connections and relationships of all these different fragments of who you are digitally, and we put that in a graph, in nodes and edges,” he added.

The Necessity of Real-Time Data

One of the biggest challenges facing credit unions today is the speed at which fraudsters operate, Harrison pointed out. Criminals, he added, are moving away from compromising physical devices and toward digital manipulation, such as using disposable Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) numbers or fresh email addresses created solely for fraud. Because of this, relying on static data sets—which might only be refreshed monthly or quarterly—is dangerous.

“What’s really changed now is you’ve got the ability to inject a lot of data in real time, both through direct connections into partners and also offline as well,” Harrison noted. He further explained that modern defense requires immediate computation.“I need to do it in milliseconds. The fact that I can input data in real time and then do the calculations, very sophisticated calculations, in real time, that’s a game changer.”

Streamlining the Member Experience

While security is paramount, credit unions must also prioritize the member experience, Harrison argued, adding that better fraud detection leads to less friction for legitimate members.

“If you’re a legitimate consumer, and all of those different types of checks that I’m mentioning, and all those categories, and there’s green lights across the board for you, we can streamline your experience,” Harrison said. “We can move you right into the next steps in the process to get you that account opened or the loan approved with high confidence.” Conversely, he noted, when risks are detected, the system allows the credit union to alter the workflow dynamically.

“If we can detect that this digital experience is coming from a Tor exit node... then you can actually tailor that workflow to either send them down a different path, or to actually say that we can’t continue this transaction through digital means,” Harrison explained.

A Holistic Approach to Identity

Fideo is currently going to market primarily through partnerships with fintechs already embedded in the credit union tech stack, making implementation seamless for institutions.

Looking ahead, Harrison advised credit unions to stop viewing fraud prevention and compliance as separate silos. He believes the most effective strategy treats identity as a continuous narrative. “I’d really like to look specifically at the identity piece of this equation, the scams that are taking advantage of people, ‘compromisation,’ the account takeover and things like that,” Harrison concluded. “Look at it as one thing throughout the entire member journey.”