Identity Verification and Closing the Trust Gap
Businesses across Australia and New Zealand have had to adapt quickly to the changing digital preferences of customers because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It created a perfect storm of opportunity for bad actors, with more people conducting sensitive financial transactions online than ever before in a threat landscape that was evolving in speed and sophistication.
According to a report from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, “scammers were quick to take advantage of the crises in Australia, (including) setting up fake charity scams, taking advantage of pandemic-related incentive schemes, and seeking personal information from Australian consumers and businesses to fraudulently access government programs.”
Citing the pandemic lockdowns as a major reason for ‘sending New Zealanders online,’ New research from the Bank of New Zealand showed nearly four out of five New Zealanders were targeted by a scam and nearly a quarter fell victim to one throughout 2020-2021. The research also revealed that one in five New Zealanders believe organisations are not doing enough to keep their personal information safe.
The move online must be accompanied by digital trust
Recent research shows that in 2021, day-to-day transactions are more likely to take place online, with more than half of surveyed Australians (56%) more likely to pay a bill online since the start of the pandemic, and a third more likely to apply for a government service (33%).
Put simply, one wouldn’t engage in the transfer of large sums of money or the application of personal documentation without a substantial level of trust underpinning that transaction. The businesses that have most successfully digitalised are the ones that recognise customer identity verification as the cornerstone of strong customer engagement and trust. This crucial step in the customer relationship has become even more important as businesses across the spectrum of finance, government, retail, education and medical fields see a large uptick in new customers onboarding to digital services.
On November 11, GBG, with research and insights by leading global analyst firm, IDC, hosted a webinar to unveil “Digital Identity Verification that both Customers and Businesses Trust.” The panel discussed this new piece of research, commissioned by GBG from IDC, unpacking new ways that challenges in identity intelligence are resolved. The webinar’s key findings and discussion points were featured in an article in CFOTech Australia, “IDC and GBG examine the Australian perspective on digital identity verification.”
“Within the research,” the CFOTech Australia article explains, “IDC and GBG surveyed 300 Australian businesses about their activities relating to digital identity The survey found that almost all respondents use at least three ways to do identity verification, and many use digital identity services such as voice verification, digital fingerprint verification, and facial biometrics.
“They feel overwhelmed by the options, however, they also want to support their customers with better onboarding experiences. Security and fraud prevention are also top concerns, particularly in areas such as impersonation, account takeover, spoofing, scams, identity theft, ghost fraud, and fake identity documents,” the article notes.
The adjoining discussion focused on the ongoing challenge businesses face to align verification and identity needs with evolving customer expectations, compliance, and new technologies. It also noted that old ways of verifying customer identities and information must give way to biometric and other intelligence-driven capabilities.
Carol Chris, Regional General Manager of GBG for ANZ, spoke about GBG’s flagship product greenID as an effective solution to balance customer expectations and compliance requirements in the digital identity verification journey.
She explained, “Our flagship product is greenID which is an end to end solution that includes everything from biometrics and OCR scanning, right through to the date of verification. It can be integrated into a portal or to an app. Annually, we provide identity verification for new users to an organisation. One of our big events is the Melbourne Cup, where we have a lot of customers. During the last Cup, we registered 220,000 new users in a day. Volume and spikes are no issue for us — we have the capacity to manage these spikes based on different seasons and time of year.”
To read the full article in CFOTech Australia, visit: https://cfotech.com.au/story/idc-and-gbg-examine-the-australian-perspective-on-digital-identity-verification
To find out more about greenID, visit: https://gbg-greenid.com/
Sign up for more expert insight
Hear from us when we launch new research, guides and reports.