Stitch Shield: Smart fraud detection for enterprise payments

Fraud in online payments is a growing challenge in South Africa, where fraud rates consistently exceed the global average by approximately 27 percentage points. According to the South African Fraud Prevention Service, total active fraud listings increased by 24% in 2024 alone. 

In a climate like this, it’s not enough to simply combat fraud: it has to be detected and prevented before it happens. We’ve built Stitch Shield, a powerful fraud detection and prevention engine, to help enterprise merchants by identifying suspicious activity in real time and stopping fraud before it occurs.

“Our goal isn’t just to fight fraud; it’s to build trust in every transaction. Shield is how we make that real for our merchants.” - Ena-Marié Louw, Fraud Lead at Stitch

What is Stitch Shield?

Stitch Shield is our enterprise-grade fraud prevention engine, designed to automatically detect and block fraudulent transactions before they’re processed. It uses a powerful, rule-based detection system, trained on a large volume of transaction data processed through Stitch and enriched with dispute and chargeback patterns from all major South African banks. By stopping fraud before it happens, Stitch Shield actively reduces the overall incidence of fraud on merchant platforms. 

How Stitch Shield works

Automatic fraud detection

Stitch Shield automatically flags suspicious activity and blocks fraudulent transactions using a set of custom rules tailored to each merchant’s specific risk profile.

When transactions trigger these fraud rules, our fraud team immediately alerts the merchant and works closely with them to investigate. Based on the findings, our fraud team can block the flagged user from transacting either on that specific merchant’s platform or across all merchant platforms, depending on the nature of the fraud.

Customisable rules for different use cases

Fraud risks vary by industry, and Stitch Shield is built to adapt. Merchants can create or request custom rules at any time to match their evolving needs. Our fraud team also offers recommended rule sets based on trends and patterns observed across the ecosystem. 

Fraud rule thresholds are fully customisable: Merchants may set these thresholds in collaboration with our team, or Stitch Shield can automatically calculate them based on actual user activity. These thresholds are automatically updated every two weeks to stay in sync with platform behavior.

Integrated with existing systems

Stitch Shield can be integrated within merchant fraud prevention systems and supports existing rules and logic. We also offer the option to delay the allocation or settlement of deposits, giving merchant teams time to validate users, wallets, or accounts directly on their platforms. 

Data visibility

Shield offers clear visibility into where fraud is coming from and how it's evolving. Our fraud team provides detailed support and analytics on past events, helping merchants identify patterns, monitor investigations, and stay ahead of emerging fraud trends.

Why fraud prevention in payments matters

At Stitch, we process millions of transactions across industries, from financial services, to retail, travel, lending and more. Because of this scale, have significant visibility into how fraud happens and how to prevent it.

Stitch Shield leverages these insights to help merchants protect revenue, streamline operations and deliver safer, more secure payment experiences for their customers.

However, we know that fraud isn’t just a technical challenge; it’s an ecosystem challenge. As Ena-Marié Louw, our Fraud Lead, shared at the recent international SAFPS Fraud Conference:

“Fraudsters collaborate better than we do. They share intelligence, move fast and exploit our silos. To truly unlock freedom from fraud, we need to work together - not just with tools, but with trust.”

This is the ethos behind Stitch Shield: it’s a detection engine and a collaborative force. Designed with flexibility and transparency in mind, Shield supports not just real-time flagging and blocking but also information sharing, investigation support and proactive intervention.

By bridging the gaps between institutions and enabling shared intelligence,we are helping merchants move from playing defense to building resilient, fraud-aware platforms that grow stronger together.

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