Why is Document Verification important?

During the customer onboarding process, document verification can help organisations verify new customers quickly and securely by checking the authenticity of ID documents. This is particularly important for organisations that regularly deal with high-value transactions, such as banks, financial organisations and cryptocurrency companies. Organisations like these need to know with absolute certainty who they are doing business with when reviewing and verifying new account applications. 

Document verification works by scanning official documents like bank statements, driving licenses or passports for a range of features such as holograms, watermarks, stamps, fonts, or other security features. What’s more, the personal data presented in the documents, such as name, date of birth or address, can be checked and validated against third-party data sources. This is particularly critical for organisations selling age-restricted products and services, such as wine retailers or car hire firms.  

As more customers interact with organisations online, document verification has evolved. Today, it’s not uncommon to be asked to upload ID documents and a photo or short video to prove likeness, when opening a new account. Consumers expect this process to be quick or even real-time, but this can be challenging for financial organisations to deliver at scale. Often, a team of staff are required to manually verify ID document. Not only is this time-consuming and prone to the risk of human error, but the cost of having a team dedicated to this task can also quickly add up and become unaffordable.  

This challenge is made harder by the increasing scale and sophistication of identity fraud. At times, it can feel like businesses and fraudsters are playing a game of cat-and-mouse. For every advance in identity verification, there’s an advance in identity fraud methods. It’s a never-ending race that keeps both sides innovating, but ultimately technology always gives the good guys the edge. For this reason, many organisations are looking at how manual document verification can be automated to reduce the pressure on staff, improve the customer onboarding experience and help prevent fraud. 

Enhancing the Customer Onboarding Experience  

In recent years, many organisations have focused on improving the customer onboarding experience by streamlining all aspects of the customer journey to remove friction. But while speed is important to customers, it’s not everything. Many customers are more concerned about trust and security than they are about how quickly it takes them to submit ID documents when signing up for an account. 

GBG research suggests it’s the combination of speed, trust and security that drives a customer’s choice to transact. At the same time, this mismatch of expectations is leaving organisations unsure of which customers to trust, while doubts about security are making some consumers feel anxious when opening new accounts or transacting online.  

In the quest to remove friction, many organisations have overlooked a surprising truth. The fact is, customers don’t just accept friction, they expect it. In many ways, it gives them a sense of security and imbues a greater feeling of confidence in the organisation they are interacting with.  

The real challenge is not about removing sources of friction, it’s about delivering a better service. To do that, businesses must balance convenience for customers with protection against identity fraud.  

If you’d like to learn more about the Friction Fracture theory, check out our latest guide.  

Earning Customer Trust  

Increasingly, organisations are looking at how identity verification services can be used to rebuild customer trust, while still providing a convenient experience. Many organisations are looking at how document verification services can be used to give consumers greater confidence while allaying any fears that may persist about potentially onboarding the wrong kind of customers.  

Some of the most promising technologies include Smart Capture, which automatically recognises an identity document type using the camera in a user’s device, and Optical Character Recognition (OCR), which ‘reads’ words printed on an identity document and uses this to populate form fields. Other promising technologies include NFC and Biometric Liveness, which combats fraud by verifying that the person attempting to register for a product or service is genuinely behind the attempt. 

Using technologies like these to verify ID documents during the customer onboarding process can help organisations assure consumers that the onboarding process is secure while giving businesses the data needed to trust newly onboarded customers. 

What’s more, these technologies can be configured and layered according to customers’ attitudes to friction. For instance, you mind find that older people prefer having the option to manually fill in forms when opening accounts online while younger people may prefer to take alternative routes that make greater use of technology.