# Identity Insights for Transactions
source: https://developer.mastercard.com/identity-insights-for-transactions/documentation/index.md

## Overview {#overview}

As payments increasingly shift to card-not-present transactions, businesses are faced with ensuring that customers experience smooth, frictionless, and secure commerce while balancing their risk of fraudulent transactions.

Yet, in a world where most customers perform good transactions, businesses using out-of-date identity services to verify their customers unknowingly increase their risk while closing their doors to more transactions and lifetime customer opportunities.

Identity Insights for Transactions (IIT) delivers individual, payment and device insights in a single API payload that reduces risk and increases business success by offering a complete perspective on any transaction.

#### Key features {#key-features}

**Individual Insights (Primary and Secondary Name, Email, Phone, Address):**   

Understand the risk associated to the data associated to the individual conducting/benefiting from the transaction.  

**Payment Insights (Payment Credential, Transaction Details):**   

Understand the risk associated to the data associated to the payment credential being used in the transaction.  

**Device Insights (IP, Device Characteristics):**   

Understand the risk associated to the device being used to facilitate the transaction.   

**Combined Insights:**   

Understand the riskiness of a transaction when all aspects of the identity, individual, payment and device, are considered.  

## How it Works {#how-it-works}

Identity Insights for Transactions can be used by either an end-customer (Merchant or Acquirer) or by a one-to-many reseller partner (Payment Service Provider or Fraud Platform). It can be leveraged pre-authentication, pre-authorization, or post-authorization, and has additional value-add in Payment Services Directive Two(PSD2) markets, where it can help acquirers to optimize their Identity Insights for Transactions (IIT) exemptions.

* **End-Customer (Merchant or Acquirer) Model:** The customer who has contracted with Mastercard for the Identity Insights for Transactions (IIT) product offering, integrates Identity Insights for Transactions (IIT) directly into their risk decision workflow and model.
* **Partner (also known as Payment Service Provider or Fraud Platform) Model:** The Mastercard customer, in this case, the 'partner', integrates Identity Insights for Transactions (IIT) into their broader suite of products and services and provides either an opt-in or opt-out service offering to their end customers.

### Pre-Authentication Flow {#pre-authentication-flow}

The following diagram provides a high-level view of the pre-checkout flow for either the end-customer or partner model.

![](https://static.developer.mastercard.com/content/identity-insights-for-transactions/uploads/Pre_Auth_IIT2.png)

#### Execution Steps {#execution-steps}

1. The consumer initiates the transaction with the merchant.
2. The merchant/acquirer queries the Identity Insights for Transactions API directly or via a partner to gain individual and device insights on the transaction.
3. The merchant/acquirer leverages the insights for risk decisioning to determine how to proceed with the transaction.
4. Based on the risk decision, the merchant/acquirer will either:
   1. Request a frictionless experience (As a TRA exemption in the EU).
   2. Request an authentication challenge.
   3. Decline to process the transaction.

### Post-Authorization Flow {#post-authorization-flow}

The following diagram provides a high-level view of the post-authorization flow for either the end-customer or partner model.

![](https://static.developer.mastercard.com/content/identity-insights-for-transactions/uploads/partner-flow1.png)

#### Execution Steps {#execution-steps-1}

1. The merchant has already successfully authorized the transaction.
2. The merchant queries the Identity Insights for Transactions API directly or via a partner to gain individual and device insights on the transaction.
3. The merchant leverages the insights for risk decisioning to determine how to proceed with the transaction.
4. Based on the risk decision, the transaction can proceed to settlement or shipment, it can be directed to manual review, or reversed.

## Good to Know {#good-to-know}

* Discover more about the various identity elements which IIT can provide insights on in the [Parameters](https://developer.mastercard.com/identity-insights-for-transactions/documentation/parameters/index.md) section.
* Find out more about the insights we can return in our [Data Dictionary](https://static.developer.mastercard.com/content/identity-insights-for-transactions/SynergyData+Dictionary+-+IIT.pdf).
* Follow our [Tutorials and Guides](https://developer.mastercard.com/identity-insights-for-transactions/documentation/tutorials-and-guides/index.md), along with our [reference app](https://developer.mastercard.com/identity-insights-for-transactions/documentation/reference-app/index.md) to create a working prototype.

Tip: If you don't have a Mastercard representative, reach out for help from our [support page](https://developer.mastercard.com/identity-insights-for-transactions/documentation/support/index.md#get-help/).

## Next Steps {#next-steps}

When you are ready to use the APIs, refer to the [API Basics](https://developer.mastercard.com/identity-insights-for-transactions/documentation/api-basics/index.md) page for API authentication, and environment details.