As transaction security increases, the ability to identify consumers and verify their identity online now has a central role.
Considered fundamental to maintaining customer trust and transaction security, this capability is growing rapidly and continuously: new technologies (and new behaviors) are revolutionizing the way financial institutions interact with their customers and employees. This process is changing the scope of their identity management obligations: accurately verifying and authenticating the identity of their customers online is becoming critical to the smooth operation of the company.
As companies around the world increasingly focus on digitizing their businesses, especially in payment processes, digital identity verification has become an emerging market segment. Dominated by a few large companies, we are seeing the arrival of smaller players who are constantly innovating and disrupting the market by grabbing some of its shares.
Definition of online identity
The identity verification market is undergoing a paradigm shift from manual identity verification systems to those based on electronic credentials. So in practical terms, how does this work?
Digital identity is a set of technologies that hold a central role in many digital interactions between individuals and institutions. At the same time, digital identity technologies can be seen as “double-edged” tools: they can be used both for the good of society and individuals, but also for undesirable and even harmful purposes by governments and other institutions, as well as by individual actors with malicious intent, as it is not always clear where user data ends up during the verification process.
Despite this, digital identity verification solutions are a source of many efficiencies, and trusted and independent identity verification systems improve the individual identification/verification experience when authenticating customer identity to authorize access to an account or service.
Moving away from traditional manual methods of identity verification offers several other immediate benefits such as improved turnaround times due to its automation, increased levels of accuracy… Using a trusted digital identity verification system also reduces the risk of human error.
Online identity verification use case
Identity verification is being performed by an increasing number of businesses. The reasons are as follows:
- Know Your Customer (KYC): this is a legal requirement for financial institutions or other industries such as online gambling.
- Digital credit scoring: understanding if you’re dealing with the right person is key: you don’t want to lend money to a fraudster or someone who won’t be able to repay.
- Transaction fraud: to stop accepting payments made with stolen cards, linking a person’s identity to their credit card details is the most secure way. It can also be a compliance issue, for example in the context of the EU’s Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) requirement.
- The fight against money laundering: highly regulated, this requires particular types of verification, such as the possibility of analyzing lists of PEPs (politically exposed persons).
Need help securing your sites? Call a cybersecurity consultant!
Online identity verification tools
1. Veriff
The leader in identity verification automation, KYC and identity fraud prevention, Veriff enables your business to comply with regulations without sacrificing new customers. It’s an entire infrastructure dedicated to identity verification, KYC and digital credit scoring. Veriff’s identity verification platform uses AI-driven technology, and allows you to onboard a customer in seconds. The company boasts a 98% check automation rate and an average decision time of 6 seconds. Veriff covers over 9,500 identity documents, with 95% of users verified on the first try.
Price:
Veriff offers starter plans priced by check, and offers a custom plan for large requirements.
2. SEON
Budapest-based company, SEON offers a comprehensive suite of anti-fraud software. The focus is on digital fingerprinting, with tools such as IP analysis, email and phone number analysis, fingerprinting of those devices, and even a reverse social media search.
All data is confronted with risk rules, which are fully customizable by a risk manager. SEON is not only used for fraud prevention, as many companies also use it to check the creditworthiness of their users with additional data or to filter out unwanted users before official KYC checks.
The various tools offered by SEON allow you to verify the identity of users through their digital footprint, allowing you to better understand who your users are, all through invisible controls that do not slow down the customer journey.
SEON is a leader in user information research, cross-referencing information from over 35 social networks.
To dismantle entire fraud rings, SEON identifies patterns between similar accounts.
Price:
Priced from $99 per month, it’s a shame that SEON doesn’t offer biometric document control, nor does it query PPE or sanctions lists.
3. MemberCheck
Founded in 2008, MemberCheck has a long history of helping organizations meet their compliance obligations, with its online identity verification solution as a key selling point.
The verification process includes biometric verification using:
- facial recognition
- liveliness detection,
- 2FA verification by SMS.
The process is easy to integrate via RESTful APIs, and of course you can perform any standard AML checks you might need, such as PPE checks and sanction lists.
MemberCheck scans identities in its massive proprietary database of 1.4 million profiles and relies on a technology called FaceMatch for biometric screening of customers.
It’s unfortunate that MemberCheck doesn’t allow for data enrichment: you can verify documents, but you won’t get a user profile.
Price:
Price is on request only.
4. Trulioo
Trulioo is a Vancouver-based company that provides an identity verification solution as part of a KYC process.
Among the platform’s features are identity verification, document verification and anti-money laundering watch list monitoring.
The system accepts over 4,200 types of official documents in 195 countries, and the GlobalGateway portal can verify… 5 billion identities!
All this is accessible via a low-code, custom or API integration. We regret that Trulioo does not offer data enrichment or risk rating.
Price:
The price is flexible and affordable: the paid plans are segmented according to the tools you might need. Yes, “paid plans” because you can try Trulioo for free!
5. Jumio
Still an industry heavyweight, Jumio automates identity verification for companies like HSBC and United.
The Jumio KYX platform is designed to provide the best possible customer experience, and can analyze 3,500 document types from more than 200 countries.
You can use it to verify identities, but also to verify addresses, calculate fraud risk, and even look at government watch lists, making it a versatile tool ideal for highly regulated industries.
Price:
The main drawback of Jumio is its high price: you’ll have to contact the sales team to get a quote, but it’s common knowledge that Jumio is not the most affordable solution for SMBs.
6. IDCheck.io
IDCheck.io provides instant and automatic verification of a remote identity.
From ID document checks to full identity verifications, IDCheck.io offers a range of automated services ensuring smooth, instant and paperless conversion steps.
Your customer onboarding is automated, fraud is detected and your services are fully KYC compliant.
Price:
Pricing is on a “per call” basis: one check $1.99, $18.99 per 10 and $174.99 per 100.
The sliding scale continues with a custom solution (and on request)