Identity verification has been around for years. But up until the last decade, it involved a lengthy, costly, case-by-case and face-to-face approach.
Now, that’s all changing. Today, identity verification is fully digitalised, with tangible assets used to create digital trust in a process that’s increasingly used by leading companies to verify both new and existing clients.
Past Problems
Traditionally, identity verification included an obligatory face-to-face meeting with clients, who provided personal documents such as ID, passport, and driving licence. And slow though it was, this form of verification was generally trustworthy: government-approved documents were handed to you a client who was sitting right there, across your desk.
But as the world – and the sphere of financial operations – has grown, so has the need for remote identification. It’s no longer practical – especially under the pandemic – to bring every client into your office and require them to hand over their documents in person. Today, tangible documentation and face-to-face interaction are almost obsolete, making digitisation inevitable.
Present Dangers
Digital identity verification has become the primary form of both verifying new clients and reassessing existing ones. Clients provide a digital copy or scan of their documents, and the company is then responsible for determining authenticity and establishing that the person behind the device is the same as that depicted.
But, smarter and quicker though this process may be, it comes with its own host of new challenges…
The digital sharing of personal documents can be frustrating for both the client (who, if required to upload and re-upload the same documentation over and over again, will quickly become disillusioned with the company) and the firm (who have to deal with a myriad of data protection regulations).
At the same time, digital sharing of documentation is a boon for fraudsters, who exploit unsecure or shoddy software to commit identity theft: account takeover, debit/credit card fraud, and theft of documents such as mail, driver’s licence, and social security numbers.
Future Perfection
Despite these issues, industry insight giant ReportLinker suggests the global identity verification market size will reach $17.8 billion by 2026, a market growth of 13.4% CAGR for this period. Thus identity verification will not only remain a vital element of any business, but is also expected to attract increasing investment in the coming years.
Which means that regulatory technology (RegTech) is, without doubt, the way of the future: a must for firms who wish to operate at maximum efficiency and minimum risk.
Such technology creates the trustworthiness of face-to-face verification in a digital environment while minimising onboarding time. Simultaneously, RegTech allows access to governmental databases and other valid sources of information; a major indicator of operational excellence in the identity verification process.
Firms need to be strictly in line with regulations to conduct effective identity verification, and regulation technology – once fully adopted by corporations worldwide – solves the issues of past and present in one fell swoop. When it comes to the future, RegTech is the key to helping firms build a better, brighter, safer digital identity verification process.
At iSPIRAL we understand your constant struggle to verify the identity of new clients. With our RegTek+ Digital Identity Verification & Screening we provide a state-of-the-art solution that delivers a frictionless approach to your onboarding challenges.
