October 01, 2025
Introducing the Signal payment risk platform: a full solution for ML-powered risk assessments
Every business faces the same challenge with ACH payments: how to protect against costly returns without adding unnecessary friction for customers. For years, Plaid Signal has helped solve that tradeoff, decisioning more than $185 billion in payments while boosting approval rates and reducing returns.
Today, we’re taking the next step forward: introducing Signal as Plaid’s payment risk platform. With new tools, stronger machine learning models, and no-code flexibility, Signal has evolved into a full platform designed to help businesses of every size better manage risk. From intuitive rule templates and real-time balance checks to advanced, explainable risk scores, Signal gives companies sharper control and smarter protection, as well as better adaptability as payments scale and fraud becomes more sophisticated.
What's new in Signal
1. Intuitive templates, tools and explainability in Signal Rules, our hosted rules engine
Managing ACH risk is dynamic. Businesses need to adapt their logic as traffic patterns or their risk outlook changes. Signal makes it easy with risk-adjustable rule templates, backtesting, and a dashboard to spot risk trends and take action. Everything runs in a hosted rules engine with no-code UI, so you can adjust your risk approach instantly without any development work.
2. Real-time balance checks or ML-powered risk scores - your choice
Not every payment carries the same risk and businesses want the flexibility to align the checks executed with the riskiness of each transaction. Signal lets you choose: use simple real-time account balance checks or apply more powerful machine-learning transaction risk scores for comprehensive ACH return protection.
3. Upgraded ML features and models for stronger risk detection
Over the past year, we’ve improved recall on our core model by over 140%. We’ve also released FI-specific attributes you can use to build targeted risk rules, velocity features that better detect and manage transaction spikes, and vertical-specific models designed to account for the unique transaction patterns of industries like gaming and remittances. Together, these upgrades give you sharper tools to anticipate risk and stop more returns before they happen.
Proven impact
Signal has been proven to reduce losses due to ACH returns by up to 80% for clients like Uphold or unlock over $100M in instant funds for clients like Robinhood, lowering costs while improving customer experience. Backed by Plaid’s consumer-permissioned network, where over 1 in 2 U.S. consumers have connected via Plaid, Signal provides unparalleled insight into account balances, transaction activity, and changes in account identity information.
Embedded in Transfer for end-to-end simplicity
We’re also extending Signal’s no-code flexibility into Transfer, Plaid’s money movement solution. With Transfer, you can get started quickly using the same out-of-the-box templates, backtesting tools, and the flexibility to choose between simple balance checks or advanced ML-powered risk scores, all through an intuitive, no-code UI.
Once configured, Transfer executes these checks on your behalf, removing manual work and giving you more control and visibility over outcomes.
The future of payment risk
As risk and fraud evolve and become more sophisticated, so does the Signal platform. We’re not only improving the impact of Signal through stronger models, real-time data, and no-code controls, we’re also deepening our investment in this space to make enterprise-grade risk management accessible to every business.
Signal represents the next step in that journey: a platform that is easy to use, with the flexibility to meet businesses where they are and the intelligence to help them scale with confidence.
Smarter, simpler, and built for the future of payments. Come build with us.