ValidiFI’s new Compass service combines bank-account, ownership and risk checks. Here is what businesses should test before relying on it.
A bank account can exist and still be the wrong place to send money. Businesses need to check who owns it and what else looks unusual before approving a payment.
On 15 October 2026, ValidiFI announced Compass, a service that brings account validation, identity, ownership and payment-risk checks into one API. An API lets business software request those checks automatically.
According to ValidiFI, the service can return account status, ownership matches, previous account relationships and signs of suspicious activity. The available checks depend on the information supplied and the customer's setup. Compass routes requests to the relevant checks for that workflow.
The company says Compass is available now. Its announcement does not establish coverage for Nigerian bank accounts, so Nigerian businesses should confirm local support before considering an integration.
ValidiFI also reports that, in one customer analysis, accounts with warning signs missed by validation alone had seven times more returned ACH payments. ACH is a US bank-payment network. That is a company-reported finding from one analysis, with no sample size given in the release. It cannot predict the savings another business will achieve.
Consider a supplier asking you to change the bank account used for payments. This is an example, not a case reported by ValidiFI.
Your software might confirm that the new account is open. Your team still needs to confirm that the supplier authorised the change. A useful payment workflow would hold the change for review and ask a staff member to verify it through a contact method already on file.
The developer should record who reviewed the change, what they checked and who approved the payment. That gives your accounts team something they can investigate later.
Before buying another fraud tool, review recent failed payments and disputed account changes. Decide which checks would have helped, then test them against those records.
Track payments stopped correctly, genuine customers delayed and the time staff spend reviewing alerts. Ask the provider what happens when a check returns no answer. Your team needs a written decision for that situation before the integration goes live.
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