St. Petersburg, Fla. (April 16, 2025) – Juniper Payments, a Velera company, today announced a powerful new addition to its Payments Hub: an embedded artificial intelligence (AI)-driven fraud prevention engine built to meet the needs of modern financial institutions and encourage broader adoption of instant payments. The announcement was made in conjunction with VeleraLIVE, taking place this week in Denver, Colo.

As the largest cloud-based, non-bank third-party provider of interbank transaction and reporting systems in the U.S., Juniper Payments is taking a proactive stance against increasingly sophisticated fraud schemes by integrating cutting-edge AI and machine learning (ML) capabilities directly into its platform.

This new enhancement delivers real-time fraud detection at the point of origination and processing, empowering financial institutions to confidently expand beyond receive-only status and activate send functionality for instant payment rails like FedNow^® and RTP^®. Additionally, it adds risk-scoring capabilities across traditional payments, including wires and, ultimately, ACH and cross-border payments.

“The fraud landscape is rapidly evolving, with bad actors leveraging automation, generative AI, synthetic identities and phishing schemes at scale,” said Jon Budd, CEO of Juniper Payments. “Traditional defenses won’t keep up. With our embedded AI fraud engine, we’re enabling real-time detection and decisioning, giving financial institutions the confidence to not only protect their assets, but to fully participate in the next generation of faster and instant payments.”

Juniper’s Payments Hub streamlines a full spectrum of payments operations, including origination, beneficiary account validation, risk management, reporting and processing, by managing the rails for automated payment delivery and receipt via Juniper Payments-connected rails to the Federal Reserve, The Clearing House and FX gateways – all within one online platform. The system reduces operational friction, accelerates transaction posting, enhances transparency and improves funds availability, providing more predictive cash flow for both consumers and businesses.

The addition of AI-powered fraud tools enhances both accuracy and adaptability. By analyzing large volumes of transactional and behavioral data in real time, the platform can detect subtle patterns that indicate fraudulent activity while minimizing false positives. The result is faster decisions, better protection and smarter automation that evolves alongside emerging threats.

A case study[1] utilizing these fraud tools saw the following results:

90% reduction in account takeovers and false positives, respectively
82% reduction in first payment defaults
73% reduction in fraud overall

“This is more than just fraud protection – it’s a catalyst for progress,” Budd added. “Many financial institutions have been hesitant to flip the switch on full instant payment functionality. Our new solution provides the assurance they need to move forward with confidence, knowing they can protect their customers while staying competitive in a digital-first payments world.”

For more information about the Payments Hub and its embedded fraud prevention capabilities, visit juniperpayments.com/juniper-funds.

About Juniper Payments

Juniper Payments, a Velera company headquartered in Wichita, Kansas, delivers modular payment solutions through correspondent and direct relationships with banks and credit unions nationwide. Serving more than 3,000 financial institutions daily, Juniper enables secure, real-time payment initiation and receipt across all rails—from ACH and Wires to instant options like RTP and FedNow. Visit JuniperPayments.com for more.

About Velera

Velera, formerly PSCU/Co-op Solutions, is the nation’s premier payments credit union service organization (CUSO) and an integrated financial technology solutions provider. With over four decades of industry experience and a commitment to service excellence and innovation, the company serves more than 4,000 financial institutions throughout North America, operating with velocity to help its clients keep pace with the rapid momentum of change and fuel growth in the new era of financial services. Velera leverages its expertise and resources on behalf of credit unions and their members, offering an end-to-end product portfolio that includes payment processing, fraud and risk management, data and analytics, digital banking, instant payments, strategic consulting, collections, ATM and POS networks, shared branching and 24/7/365 member support via its contact centers. For more information, visit velera.com.

[1] Source: Fraud.net, The Advantages of AI in Fraud Prevention: Building A Stronger Defense, December 18, 2024.