Any organization that needs to be sure about customer identity is always practicing a balancing act. On the one hand, there is the need for speed and ease of use — where the customer experience is key. It’s all about getting new customers onboard quickly, having that functionality available 24/7, and once they’re on board, re-establishing identity at key points during the customer’s interactions with the company.

There are a few ways organizations approach this. Many rely on performing KYC (know your customer) manually. For example, during onboarding, human operators talk to new customers to ensure they are who they say they are and can verify identity documents in real-time. The big disadvantage here is the resources needed to facilitate the process.

The other route involves relying on technology, which, while improving constantly, isn’t ever 100% accurate. Gangs of fraudsters exploit any shortfalls, and conversely, genuine users are sometimes rejected because of software or algorithmic glitches.

That is the situation experienced by many fintechs and financial services providers. 

 As they grow and scale, companies run into problems with manual onboarding. For example, when doing phone verification, calls between a company’s operators and potential users can easily take around 15 minutes, and subsequently frustrated potential customers who found themselves on hold hang up from the queue. In a digital-first environment, financial institutions struggle to offer the type of high-end customer experience prospective customers want.

As a result, fintechs like BigPay have chosen to integrate Onfido – which offers a hybrid product combining powerful AI-driven processing with highly trained document fraud analysts to provide best in class identity verification. 

Digital KYC is massively advantageous for companies trading across national borders, offering services to a multinational user base. Today’s best KYC providers like Onfido can verify identities across thousands of documents globally. That democratization also allows many different types of companies to check customer identities, not just financial institutions but also the emerging verticals of ridesharing, house-sitting, and many other sharing economy players. Digital banks in particular are a key group that stand to benefit – they are facing growing competition from innovators who deliver a superior digital experience.

As mentioned at the outset of this article, no fully digital solution is 100% effective. Companies use Onfido because it offers safe, reliable, fast, and dependable digital ID verification and the option of human verification by operators who are processing identities 24/7 to clear up the tricky edge cases: where there might be a suspicion of fraudster activity, for instance.

You can read plenty more organizations’ solutions to the delicate balance between digital and “analog” KYC on the Onfido website, or to plot your own path, why not watch a three-minute demo? Whatever your vision for a secure customer experience, Onfido has the technology (and the people) to help you realize it.

Find out how Onfido helps companies deliver trusted experiences, at a lower cost.