Data Partners Emerge as the Unsung Heroes of Digital Identity

Watch more: What’s Next In Payments: Trulioo’s Hal Lonas

Payments and commerce security relies on the verification of identities to reduce fraud and keep transactions flowing securely across a global ecosystem.

At Trulioo, Chief Technology Officer Hal Lonas said the biggest lifts often come from the least visible contributors, including data, data partners and the infrastructure that makes intelligent verification possible.

Trulioo’s identity platform has expanded quickly, particularly in business verification and know your business services, Lonas told PYMNTS as part of a What’s Next in Payments “Unsung Heroes” segment. That growth is powered by the sheer breadth of information the company can pull together. The platform now relies on an increase in the volume and variety of data it captures and analyzes.

“One big unsung hero for us is the data source partners we work with to bring in data,” he said, adding that the company does not simply ping those sources. Trulioo ingests and maintains them at scale, enabling real analysis rather than simple lookup responses.

This orchestration is constant and deliberate. Trulioo works across inside and outside partners to support a scalable identity framework that can meet customers’ accuracy, reach and performance requirements.

Customers need different verification methods for different risk profiles, Lonas said. The platform supports that flexibility while adjusting dynamically.

“We can verify someone with data alone and not have them have to do a whole lot of work,” he said.

Customers can choose low-friction options or step up to higher assurance levels if required, and Trulioo can advise when a transaction or onboarding flow suggests a need for deeper checks.

“We bring multiple technologies to bear to get the job done,” Lonas said.

This approach allows Trulioo to offer customers not raw data but meaning.

“Our customers don’t want to just have it regurgitated out back to them in the form we saw,” he said. “They want to see the analytics on top of it that help guide their decision-making process.”

How Trulioo Ingests and Abstracts Data Safely

Trulioo pulls in terabytes of government, public and private data. It applies data science, cleansing and high-performance retrieval to deliver insights at speed. Cloud infrastructure and specialized databases are critical to delivering those outcomes for clients, Lonas said.

Customers, though, do not see the complexity. Trulioo abstracts away the underlying systems, presenting clean signals rather than the operational burden of managing them.

Low-friction onboarding remains a core objective. Trulioo’s platform can start with the simplest data-only check and escalate only when required.

This orchestration helps create the smooth experiences that banks, FinTechs and merchants increasingly require, especially as global onboarding and compliance demands grow more complex, Lonas said.

Compliance as a Competitive Advantage

Compliance, privacy engineering and transparency are not obligations but differentiators, he said.

Trulioo is “extremely careful” with customers’ data, offering retention periods “all the way down to zero if they want,” he said. Trulioo adheres to strict certifications and invites continuous audits from clients to demonstrate adherence to privacy and security expectations.

Near-Term Roadmap and a Look Ahead

Looking ahead to 2026, Lonas said he is particularly energized by the emergence of agentic commerce and the trust requirements that will accompany it.

“There may be agents running around buying things on your behalf, but do you trust the agent?” he said. “Where did it come from? What’s it going to do?”

Trulioo’s role will be to validate who created the agent, who it represents and how it interacts with businesses.

There are also plans for more data, broader coverage and deeper behind-the-scenes linkage, including graph-based insights that can reveal ownership structures and relationships across businesses, he said.

“Trust and safety and transparency [about] businesses and their operations is something our customers are keenly interested in,” Lonas said.