Applicant risk scoring assesses applicants and their activity in real-time based on the applicant events (transactions, sign-up, login, and so on) received via the API. Each event is screened through multiple factors, each weighted differently depending on its importance to a specific company.

Such a flexible approach allows for the creation of customizable risk profiles, adapting dynamically to user-specific criteria and guaranteeing accurate and timely risk assessment.

The multi-factor risk score shows how likely a user is to engage in suspicious or fraudulent behavior. It might be calculated based on multiple factors, signals received from any of the Sumsub features or datapoints provided by the customer, such as:

• Onboarding score performed by pre-checks (email, phone, social data)
• Applicant factors such as location, age, name
• Payment method check results
• Number of payment accounts used
• Usage of untrusted and risky devices
• Source of Income based on questionnaire (SoI/SoF)
• Transaction risk score
• Shareholders data for companies
• and more

The score helps companies decide whether to investigate their users further, apply additional checks, or reject them.
You can use the risk factors to create a custom risk matrix and categorize the detected risks as low, medium, or high to help companies prioritize them.

How applicant risk scoring works

Ongoing risk assessment utilizes risk factors represented by scoring transaction tags. You can manage tags to customise risk assesment:

• Create a tag for any risk factor related to your applicants.
• Specify the weight for it.
• Decide whether to include it in the total score.
• View the rules it was used in. Adding tags to the rules allows Sumsub to summarize their weights and produce the final risk score associated with an applicant as a separate output tag.
• Add dependant tags.
• Edit and remove tags from applicant scoring.

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Note

The transaction tags differ from the applicant tags as they are associated particularly with transactions versus that of applicant tags, which are always associated with your applicants. The applicant tags can be set up on the Tags page in the Dashboard.

The table below shows tag examples that you can use to express risk factors:

Set up applicant risk scoring

To allow Sumsub to calculate the risk score, you need to enable it for a specific level. If you have never used applicant risk scoring before, contact your dedicated Customer Success Manager at [email protected].

Step 1: Enable applicant risk scoring

To set up applicant risk scoring:

1. In the Dashboard, go to the Verification levels section and open the level of your interest.
2. Navigate to Configurations and open Advanced settings.
3. Check the Track Verification sessions box.

Step 2: Create tags

You can create a new tag from the Applicant risk scoring page by clicking Add tag and selecting Create new tag option.

Alternatively, you can do it directly on the Tags page and then add new tags on the Applicant risk scoring page.

After you open Tags page, perform the following:

1. Сlick Add tag.
2. Enter the tag name and choose the bar color.
3. Save your changes.

Step 3: Set up applicant scoring

After enabling this feature, configure its settings:

1. In the Dashboard, navigate to the Transactions and travel rule section and open Settings.
2. On the Applicant risk scoring page, select the tag you want to adjust.
3. Select the Include in Total Score box to add the selected tag score to the total risk score.
4. Adjust the tag weight (the % of the rule score applied to the tag based on your risk model).
5. If needed, add a dependent tag by clicking on the tag icon on the right.

Step 4: Add tags to rules

To add a tag to a rule:

1. Create a rule and set up its condition.
2. In the rule actions, navigate to Add tags to the transaction and add the necessary scoring tag to the rule.
3. Set up the score for each rule, which will be taken into the calculation of each risk factor.

Review applicant risk scoring results

To view total score, do the following:

1. Navigate to the Applicants page and open Individuals or Companies tab.
2. Select the applicant of your interest and go to the Overview section.

Alternatively, navigate to the Transactions section of the applicant profile and check the Risk score breakdown block.

Along with the total risk score, we display Additional risk indicators — supplementary risk signals detected for the applicant. These indicators provide extra context for manual review but do not directly contribute to the total risk score.

For example, they may include antifraud scores for the applicant’s IP address, device, phone, or email, as well as scores from other verification or onboarding checks.

To see how Sumsub calculated a specific score, click the info icon next to the corresponding risk factor or additional risk indicator.

Each time the rule containing the scoring tag is triggered, the system updates the total risk score in the applicant profile as per the most recent transaction.

To get the scoring results, use this API method and see the scoringResult object. Response example:

{
  "id": "69f0721264ade593a3b99500",
  "applicantId": "69f0759064ade593a3b9923e",
  "counterpartyApplicantId": "69f0721264ade593a3bf40e",
  "scope": "events",
  "externalUserId": "selfcopied-8789g6d-1565-4004-bb75-acd4261bd014",
  "clientId": "46478hg58950d80774gj7793",
  "data": {
    "txnId": "03e47b09-f77e-4da8-9b58-4925e4ddadca",
    "txnDate": "2026-04-28 08:38:42+0000",
    "applicant": {
      "externalUserId": "87496a6d-1565-4004-ad5780-acd4261bd014",
      "fullName": "Rose Doe",
      "fullNameEn": "Rose Doe",
      "type": "individual",
      "paymentMethod": {
        "type": "card",
        "accountId": "5555 7700 4437 8890"
      }
    },
    "counterparty": {
      "externalUserId": "87496a6d-1565-4004-ad5780-acd4261bd014",
      "fullName": "Rose Doe",
      "fullNameEn": "Rose Doe",
      "type": "individual"
    },
    "type": "finance",
    "info": {
      "type": "deposit",
      "direction": "in",
      "amount": 10500,
      "currencyCode": "EUR",
      "currencyType": "fiat",
      "amountInDefaultCurrency": 10500,
      "defaultCurrencyCode": "EUR",
      "paymentDetails": "Deposit"
    }
  },
  "score": 20,
  "review": {
    "reviewId": "dlLhj",
    "attemptId": "FqpCH",
    "attemptCnt": 5,
    "elapsedSincePendingMs": 78,
    "elapsedSinceQueuedMs": 78,
    "createDate": "2026-04-28 08:44:07+0000",
    "startDate": "2026-04-28 08:44:07+0000",
    "reviewStatus": "awaitingUser",
    "confirmed": false
  },
  "createdAt": "2026-04-28 08:38:42+0000",
  "modifiedAt": "2026-04-28 08:38:42+0000",
  "scoringResult": {
    "score": 20,
    "dryScore": 0,
    "matchedRules": [
      {
        "id": "69f0721264ade593a3b7724f",
        "name": "high-dep-cc-req-EhEX",
        "revision": 1,
        "title": "High Deposit CC Request",
        "score": 20,
        "dryRun": false,
        "action": "awaitUser",
        "stage": "eval",
        "stopOnMatch": false
      }
    ],
    "action": "awaitUser",
    "ruleCnt": 1,
    "dryRunRuleCnt": 0,
    "applicantActions": [
      {
        "applicantActionId": "69f03857dace58ee8d8280ae",
        "externalActionId": "paymentMethod-2e09caa0-6fa0-476d-ad49-656781bfd686"
      },
      {
        "applicantActionId": "69f0729af84b7e89d09826d8",
        "externalActionId": "paymentMethod-02ff772b-b1bd-49b1-a5aa-65bd31855d6j"
      }
    ]
  },
  "txnInactive": false
}