# What are “Watchlists”?

Watchlists allow our Payments API customers to proactively manage risk by creating “Block” and “Allow” lists. These lists correspond to simple rules for “blocking” and “allowing” various entities on your platform.

“Block” list can restrict certain geographies, fiat identifiers (iin, rtn), card types, card responses (cvv, avs) and other types of entities, while “Allow” lists carve out permitted entities from those Block lists.

# Where can I find “Watchlists”?

[Login](🔗) to your Circle Account Dashboard.

Navigate to Account and select Fraud Management

This will open up your "watchlists" where you can toggle between your “Block list” and “Allow list”, create new entries, and manage activity. By default the "Block" list will be selected.

Note: The Watchlists are not currently available in our sandbox environment. These are only available in our production environment.

# Block List

The “Block” list will show all of the entities that are blocked by both:

• Circle - These entities are currently not supported on the Circle platform

• Customer - These entities were blocked via customer configuration It also provides customers the ability to add new entries to the block list.

If an entity is an “active” entry on the Block List all payments with an association to such an entity will be blocked by the Circle Risk Service.

There are 2 ways to create a block entry; from the Fraud Management section or directly from a transaction.

## Option 1: Fraud Management section

By clicking the “Block New Entity” button in the top right hand corner it gives you the ability to add an entity to the block list.

When you click the icon above it will open a pop-up that allows you to make additions to the Block list.

### Block New Entity

1. Select the “Type” of Entity you wish to block.

2. Enter the specific “Entity” you wish to block.

3. Select the “Reason” for blocking this entity.

4. Click "Add to block list"

#### Type

Our block list currently supports a wide range of "Types" that are grouped by common categories for simplicity. We plan to add more types and other valuable self service configurations that will add more value to customers in managing their fraud. The majority of the entity types available should be relatively intuitive. Some of those that are related to cards specifically and not as self explanatory are outlined below:

• AVS Code - Block cards based on codes returned on certain AVS. See description of various [AVS codes](🔗).

• CVV Code - Block cards based on the authentication response if you run CVV checks at time of linking. See description of the various [CVV codes](🔗).

• Funding Source - Block certain types of cards based on their labeled funding source.

• _Card Class_ - Block cards based on their classification.

#### Entity

This is the entity (or value) you wish to block from being permitted on your platform. We perform validation on the majority of the entity types to reduce manual errors. Please be careful when inputting an entity for the entity types that are free text without validation:

• Fingerprint

• Billing District

• Billing Postal Code

• Issuer District

#### Reason

This is an extremely important distinction for the block list. We provide two options to customers for the reason field:

• “Unsupported” - If you wish for an entity to **always** be blocked and never permitted on your platform then you should select “unsupported”. Example: You want to block cards that are issued in a particular region (E.g Ukraine) and under no circumstances do you want a transaction to be processed.

• “Fraud” - If you wish for an entity to be blocked for fraud purposes but allow the ability for an override via the allow list then you should select “fraud”. Example: You wish to block cards that are issued in a particular region (E.g Ukraine) because of increased fraud pressure. But, you would like a transaction that is associated with an entity on the “Allow List” to override this entry. Maybe you have a trusted user within that region and you do not wish for them to be blocked.

## Option 2: Directly from a Transaction

A block entry can be created by navigating to a transaction detail page and using the “Add Block entity” option as shown below. The advantage of using this option is the Entity values will be auto populated based on the transaction and multiple entries can be created from a single view.

Below are the steps: a. Navigate to the Payments tab under the Platform section. b. Click on a payment to view the detailed transaction page c. Click on “Add entity to Block list” d. Create a Block entity. (Each selection will create a separate entry in the Block List)

# Allow List

The “Allow” list will show all of the entities that are marked as trusted by:

• Customer - These entities were allowed (marked as "trusted") via customer configuration. If an entity has an “active” entry on the Allow List, all payments with an association to such an entity will be approved by Circle Risk Service provided:

• Customer is managing fraud successfully on their platform

• Payment has no association with Circle Unsupported criteria

• Payment has no association with Customer Unsupported criteria i.e these allow list entries will override customer entries on the block list for “fraud” reasons.

## How do I add an entry to the Allow List?

Firstly you must click on "Allow List" to navigate to the allow list from the block list.

Clicking the “Allow New Entity” button in the top right hand corner will give you the ability to add an entity to the allow list.

When you click the icon above it will open a pop-up that allows you to make additions to the Allow list.

## Allow New Entity

1. Select the “Type” of Entity you wish to allow.

2. Enter the specific “Entity” you wish to allow.

3. Select the “Reason” for blocking this allow.

4. Click "Add to allow list"

### Type

Our allow list currently supports a subset of "Types" from the block list that are again grouped by common categories for simplicity. Similarly to the block list, we plan to add more types to the allow list as we expand the available features. All of the entity types available for the allow list should be self explanatory.

### Entity

This is the entity (or value) you are labeling as "trusted" and wish to bypass all of your "fraud" entries on the block list. We perform validation on the majority of the entity types to reduce manual errors. Please be careful when inputting an entity for the entity types that are free text:

### Reason

All entries on the allow list will be given "trusted" as the reason.

# Updating Existing List Entries

What if you wish to remove a custom entry that you created from one of the lists? All you need to do is move to the very right hand side of the list for the entity in question and simply click on the icon in the "Active" column which will move the entry to an “Inactive” state.

The "Status" should immediately update with the current status of the list entry. Similarly, if we wish to reactivate a previously deactivated entity on either list you must simply click on the icon in the "Active" column which will move the entry back to an “Active” state.

# Identification of Watchlist related Decisions

Whenever Circle Risk Service denies a payment or a fiat account it will provide a `reason` within the [Risk Evaluation](🔗). This reason will provide more details on the reason for the denial. In scenarios where the denial was a direct result of a customer configuration on the block list the reason code will fall in the 3500-3899 range.

If you have any suggestions or feedback, please let us know.