Sardine and Modulr have partnered to integrate AI-enabled fraud detection and AML compliance tools into automated payment flows.
The arrangement will see Sardine's platform deployed across card and real-time payment rails, supporting Modulr's fraud prevention and compliance operations as the business scales.
Addressing the compliance gap in real-time payments
The integration forms part of Modulr's Risk & Compliance Hub, a set of connected tools and infrastructure designed to span the entire customer lifecycle. The hub is intended to protect customers, reduce friction, and prevent financial crime across onboarding and payment flows.
In addition, the partnership responds to a structural challenge in the payments industry: fraud and AML systems have historically been built around slower settlement cycles and manual investigation workflows, while businesses are increasingly expected to move funds instantly. Real-time payment rails leave little room for traditional, latency-dependent risk controls, making automated and data-driven detection tools increasingly relevant to payment infrastructure providers.
Sardine's platform will support Modulr with transaction monitoring across payment rails, AML compliance controls, and operational risk management. Sardine reports that its platform has processed over USD 1 trillion in transaction volume across a customer base that includes enterprises and financial institutions globally. The company also operates a fraud data consortium drawing on more than 5.5 billion devices, 670 million consumers, and 2.8 million businesses, which it says provides early visibility into emerging fraud patterns.
Operational context
Modulr's platform is used to automate money movement across a range of use cases, including payroll, supplier payments, lending, and travel. Through the process of embedding risk controls directly into that infrastructure, the company aims to offer customers streamlined onboarding and a lower-friction payment experience, while maintaining compliance standards that can scale in line with transaction volumes.
Ben Taylor, Chief Operating Officer at Modulr, noted that running mission-critical finance operations at scale requires compliance infrastructure that does not introduce unnecessary friction, describing the partnership with Sardine and the broader Risk & Compliance Hub as central to that goal.
The arrangement reflects a broader trend among payment infrastructure providers seeking to build or integrate financial crime prevention tools natively into their platforms, rather than relying on post-settlement review processes. For businesses operating in high-risk industries or managing large payment volumes, the ability to make risk decisions in real time, in line with the speed of funds movement, is becoming a core operational requirement rather than an optional layer.
