Surepay serves the SME merchants Saudi banks under-serve — with POS acceptance, KYC/KYB and settlement all on one licensed PI. Fraudio is the fraud, AML and compliance engine built for that model — hosted on GCP Dammam for full KSA data residency, live already with PayTabs, and focused on the merchant collusion that's the real POS risk.
Surepay is a licensed Payment Institute in Saudi Arabia (2019), providing payment infrastructure and acceptance to SMEs from KYC/KYB through terminal linking to settlement. When Surepay acts as the direct fund processor, the fraud liability shifts partly onto Surepay — not the bank. That reality shapes what the risk stack actually needs to do: catch systematic merchant collusion on POS traffic before Surepay settles the funds, and stay compliant with the SAMA-driven data-residency and reporting expectations that decide who is even allowed to operate in the Kingdom.
KSA has one of the strictest data-residency regimes in the region, and it's the reason most global fraud vendors struggle to legitimately serve Saudi processors. Fraudio operates a dedicated GCP Dammam deployment — Saudi transactions, Saudi data, Saudi region. No cross-border data flows required for Surepay to run production traffic.
We're already operational in KSA today — PayTabs runs on Fraudio — which means the compliance, integration and support path is a solved problem, not a promise.
Blocking single POS transactions at the network is a lot of engineering for a small share of the real risk. The material loss on POS traffic comes from systematic merchant fraud: a merchant colluding with individuals presenting stolen cards, or running structured schemes that a per-transaction block would never see. That's the pattern Fraudio is built to detect.
"Detecting merchant fraud is like listening to music. Each merchant has a rhythm — their MCC, their location, their peer group, their volume, their timing. Fraudio hears when the tune changes."
Saudi Arabia allows a 24-hour window between authorisation and final settlement. That's not a limitation — it's the exact window Fraudio's monitoring is built to use. Instead of forcing pre-auth blocks on POS traffic, Surepay can score, investigate and hold settlement on flagged merchants before the funds actually move.
For fraud, the action is fast — withhold settlement. For AML, the action is different — monitor and report without tipping the subject off. Both are native workflows in the platform.
Transaction authorised at the POS. Data flows into Fraudio.
Peer-group anomaly detection, sequence analysis, AML checks. Alert raised on suspicious merchant behaviour.
Fraudio case management. Surepay analyst reviews evidence, decides on action.
Confirmed fraud → settlement withheld. Clean → funds settle normally within 24h.
Fraudio spun out of an ING acquirer in 2019 and works as a wholesaler to PIs and payfacs — not directly to end merchants. The centralised AI combines acquiring and issuing signals across the consortium, segmented by MCC, location and peer group, so Surepay's SME book benefits from network effect from the first transaction.
Peer-group analysis across MCC, location and channel. Detects merchants whose behaviour deviates from their peers, whose sequences look structured, or whose first transactions immediately break pattern for the business type. The core of the POS risk story.
Score new merchants at onboarding against known fraudulent profiles. When the first transactions come in, flag immediate deviation from expected patterns for the merchant type — the fastest signal Surepay can get on a merchant that shouldn't have been onboarded.
The workflow layer for the 24-hour window. Open cases on flagged merchants, add comments and evidence, escalate, export. Full audit trail of every decision — designed for the withhold-settlement pattern Surepay needs, and defensible to SAMA when asked.
Structuring, layering, mule activity — sequence-based monitoring with no tipping off. Card scheme compliance rule library (Visa, Mastercard, mada) curated and maintained. SAR/STR-ready output for SAMA and the FIU.
Live client running Fraudio in production on Saudi traffic. Direct proof point on the KSA integration, hosting and support path.
Existing regional partnership — one of several channels through which Fraudio reaches Saudi and wider Gulf processors.
GCP Dammam deployment for full KSA data residency. Already running Saudi production traffic with PayTabs. The compliance and integration questions SAMA will ask are questions we've already answered.
Fraudio catches the systematic merchant fraud that's actually costing Surepay money — the merchants whose pattern shifts, whose sequences don't fit their peer group, whose first day of activity gives them away.
Post-transaction monitoring inside the KSA settlement window. Score, investigate and withhold funds on fraudulent merchants before settlement — deeper analysis than any real-time block could ever afford.
Fraudio serves Surepay as a wholesaler — we don't integrate directly with your SME merchants. Per-transaction cost decreases with volume; integration, maintenance and support included.
Viva Wallet is a European payment institution that deployed Fraudio to score card fraud in real time and monitor merchants for fraud and money laundering. As the merchant book scaled past half a million, the investigation team did not have to scale with it — the platform absorbed the load. It's the outcome Surepay can aim at as the SME book grows across Saudi Arabia.
“Fraudio enables us to detect fraudulent merchants and money laundering, ensuring the safety of our clients against fraud in payments. This has been extremely helpful to our growth by providing us the ability to focus our efforts in a much more accurate manner.”
A single-page summary of what makes Fraudio different — the centralised AI, the network effect, and the results customers see. Easy to share with Osamh's internal fraud expert and the wider Surepay team before the follow-up.
