Ravelin: Embracing open with Google Cloud

About Ravelin

Ravelin is a global fraud prevention company that detects fraudulent transactions online through real-time behavioural analysis, graph networks, and machine learning. Founded in 2014, Ravelin's expanding portfolio of international clients includes Deliveroo, MyTaxi, and Quiqup. More about Ravelin: www.ravelin.com.

Industries: Financial Services & Insurance, Technology
Location: United Kingdom

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Google Cloud results

  • Provides increased security at low latency thanks to encryption management with Cloud Key Management Service
  • Ensures readiness for future developments by embracing open source and open protocols
  • Enables complex calculations within the 300ms checkout window

    By using machine learning to stop credit card fraud, London FinTech start-up Ravelin has become a major player in online fraud prevention. Embedded within the checkout flow, Ravelin's real-time behavioural analytics flag fraudsters within milliseconds to online merchants through an easy-to-use dashboard. With rates of online fraud up by more than 200% in the year 2015 to 2016, Ravelin know that fast, scalable, constantly improving tools are vital to keep ahead of the growing threat. That's why the Ravelin team chose Google Cloud for a more flexible, secure cloud provider that embraces open source.

    "We believe in open source and open standards and open protocols. At Ravelin we rely on a number of open source technologies to protect our clients from fraud. With Google Cloud we can do that in a fast, globally scalable and more secure way," says Leonard Austin, CTO of Ravelin.

    Open, available, and super secure

    The number of online transactions worldwide has doubled since 2011 and the number of fraudulent transactions has grown 25% faster. To spot suspect purchasers, Ravelin takes in terabytes of historic and real-time data per client through an API, runs them through a machine learning model, then presents vendors with insights through a hyperfast graph database, all within a 300 millisecond window in the checkout flow. Because fraudsters are constantly evolving their methods, Ravelin doesn't just demand exceptional speed, security, and scalability from its cloud provider, but openness and adaptability, too, so it can take advantage of open source advances and stay one step ahead.

    Google's open source compatibility meant it was easy for Ravelin to migrate its entire infrastructure onto Google Cloud. The platform ensures high availability with autoscaling, so Ravelin can handle spikes in traffic in a cost-effective way, thanks to customer friendly pricing. Because fraud is a global issue, Google's global network allows Ravelin to deploy closer to clients without latency problems. Most importantly, Google Cloud's strong security and cutting-edge encryption mean Ravelin can more safely store and analyze card details, location data, and personal identifiable information for its clients, fully compliant with ISO/IEC 27001 and PCI DSS.

    "Google is transparent about how it does its encryption by default, and encryption is absolutely critical to any company managing their own systems, transmitting data over a network, or storing sensitive data, including sensitive system configurations. Cloud KMS makes it easy to implement best practices for secret management, and its low latency allows us to use it for protecting frequently retrieved secrets. So we have the cryptographic tools necessary to protect our secrets, and the features to keep encryption practical," says Austin.

    Greeting the future with open arms

    In only three years, Ravelin has stopped over £100 million of fraudulent transactions and analyzed over 12 PBs of data. Building on that success means staying ahead of fraud, and with Google Cloud, Ravelin can capitalize on the latest developments, wherever they emerge.

    "Google was not our first cloud provider, but it is our last and it is the right choice. It was the only provider that we felt had openness as a core value," says Leonard Austin.

        Tell us your challenge. We're here to help.

        Contact us

        About Ravelin

        Ravelin is a global fraud prevention company that detects fraudulent transactions online through real-time behavioural analysis, graph networks, and machine learning. Founded in 2014, Ravelin's expanding portfolio of international clients includes Deliveroo, MyTaxi, and Quiqup. More about Ravelin: www.ravelin.com.

        Industries: Financial Services & Insurance, Technology
        Location: United Kingdom