FintechArtificial IntelligenceReference Blueprint

High-Throughput ML Fraud Detection Architecture

A sub-120ms real-time fraud scoring pipeline designed to evaluate millions of payment transactions per day.

High-Throughput ML Fraud Detection Architecture
millions/day
transactions per day capacity
< 120ms
p99 scoring latency
Fewer
false declines than rules-only baseline

Design targets, not measured client results.

The Problem

Why teams need this pattern

Fast-growing payment channels attract card-not-present fraud and account takeover. Rule-only engines generate false positives that frustrate customers and flood analyst queues.

Ideal for

  • Payment platforms outgrowing rule engines
  • Teams adding ML scoring to an existing flow

Our Approach

Architectural approach

An inline ML inference pipeline on Kafka with gradient-boosted models. Features are computed from streaming velocity metrics and user history, returning a risk score fast enough to approve or challenge a payment in-flow.

Illustration for High-Throughput ML Fraud Detection Architecture

System Design

Architectural layers & components

How data and control flow from the edge of the system to the people who use it.

  1. 01

    Stream Ingestion

    Apache Kafka cluster receiving payment transaction payloads.

  2. 02

    Real-Time Feature Store

    Redis storing sliding-window features such as velocity and location history.

  3. 03

    Model Serving API

    Triton Inference Server running optimized XGBoost / ONNX models.

  4. 04

    Decision & Audit Engine

    Rule evaluator and audit log for regulatory compliance.

Design Targets

What this architecture is built to achieve

Targets we design toward. We confirm them against your own data and workload before you commit to a build.

millions/day
transactions per day capacity
Target
< 120ms
p99 scoring latency
Target
Fewer
false declines than rules-only baseline
Target
Full
decision audit trail
Target
Assumptions & limits
  • Model quality depends on labelled fraud data from your own traffic.
  • Latency targets assume co-located feature store and serving.

What You Get

Artifacts tailored to your environment

The blueprint is a starting point. These are the working documents and code we adapt for you.

Learn about our Artificial Intelligence services
  • Kafka sizing guide
  • Feature store schemas
  • ONNX optimization code
  • Docker Compose dev environment

How We Work

From first call to working prototype

  1. 130–45 min

    Discovery call

    We review your constraints, existing systems, and success criteria, and tell you honestly whether this blueprint fits.

  2. 21–2 weeks

    Fit & feasibility workshop

    We adapt the reference architecture to your stack, validate the design targets against your real data, and produce a scoped plan.

  3. 3Scoped per project

    Prototype, then build

    We ship a working slice first so you can judge the approach before committing to a full build.

Technology Stack

Default tools & infrastructure

We swap components to fit your stack.

  • Apache Kafka
  • Redis
  • Python / ONNX
  • Triton Inference
  • AWS EKS
  • PostgreSQL

FAQ

Common questions

Want an architecture like this?

Book a call and we'll tell you honestly whether this blueprint fits, and how we'd adapt it to your stack and constraints.