Fraud is getting smarter. Digital onboarding has not.
Mastercard and Zenoo today announced a partnership aimed at closing one of the most persistent gaps in digital finance: stopping modern fraud without forcing legitimate customers through slow, document-heavy sign-up processes that drive abandonment and lost revenue.
The collaboration brings together Mastercard Identity's global behavioural and authoritative identity intelligence with Zenoo's risk-adaptive onboarding platform, allowing businesses to verify customers in real time using signals such as email, phone, IP, device and behavioural patterns, before traditional KYC steps are triggered.
The result is a single onboarding flow that adapts dynamically to risk. Low-risk customers pass through quickly with minimal friction, while suspicious behaviour is flagged early, reducing manual reviews and preventing fraud before it scales.
A growing problem for digital finance
This approach comes as digital banks, fintechs, BNPL providers and online platforms face a surge in synthetic identity fraud, rising operational costs and record-high sign-up abandonment rates. According to industry estimates, onboarding friction now accounts for a significant share of customer drop-off, even as fraud losses continue to climb.
"Businesses are being forced into a false choice between speed and security. This partnership removes that trade-off. By combining Mastercard's identity intelligence with Zenoo's orchestration layer, companies can trust good customers sooner and intervene only when risk actually appears."
Jonnie Davis, VP, Partnerships at Zenoo
How it works
Mastercard Identity contributes behavioural insights derived from billions of global digital interactions, alongside authoritative data and real-time risk, network and IP scoring. Zenoo translates those signals into automated decisioning and adaptive onboarding journeys, applying friction selectively rather than universally.
"Fraud prevention is most effective when it happens upstream. By embedding identity intelligence directly into onboarding flows, businesses can make smarter decisions earlier, protecting both customers and conversion."
Mastercard
Early results
Early estimates from financial services and BNPL deployments show:
- 30 to 60 percent increases in passive verifications
- Up to 50 percent reductions in onboarding abandonment
- Lower manual review volumes and operational costs
- Earlier detection of stolen and synthetic identities, before full KYC is required
Integration and availability
The joint solution integrates with existing onboarding and compliance stacks, allowing regulated organisations to modernise identity decisioning without replacing current infrastructure.
The Zenoo and Mastercard solution is available immediately, with pilot programmes offered to qualifying organisations.