Author: Signzian

Shared Consumer Goods

KYC in the Shared Consumer Goods Industry

Posted on | by Signzian

Shared Consumer Goods represent a shift in modern consumption patterns, emphasizing accessibility over ownership. As the global community becomes more environmentally conscious and urban spaces more constrained, the idea of owning every product outright becomes less feasible and less attractive.

In 2019, the rental industry has made a huge market in India with estimates that the market stands at about $1.5 billion. But most people tend to limit the rental industry to car/house rentals like Zoomcar or ZoloStay. But in reality, the rental industry consists of almost every kind of consumer product that one could imagine.

When you need a new king-sized bed but can’t afford a new one, RentoMojo or Furlenco offers you premium quality beds and furniture for rent.

Attending a social affair but can’t afford the right attire? 

Login to thestyledoor.com and rent trending fashionable clothing at almost a tenth of the purchase price. 

Then there are other major brands like Quikr, GrabOnRent, and RentSher which provide you a wide range of goods on rent. You can find everything from home appliances to electronics to gym equipment on rent here. So basically, the policy of rental companies is something like: If you can dream it, you can rent it !!!!

Rise Of Rental Consumer Goods – How It Came About

Technology has redefined the concepts of sharing and renting, as Netflix has done with videos, Uber with transportation, and Airbnb in hospitality. 

A sizable sharing economy is opening up on apps and mobile sites that allow users to pick up a mind-boggling array of stuff on rent—designerwear, sofas, refrigerators and microwaves, beanbags, flat-screen TVs, and much more. The business is tantalizingly attractive and expected to scale to $45-48 billion, from less than a third of that, according to reports by industry lobby Assocham and consultancy firm Ernst & Young. 

Millennials!!

The majority of consumers consists of the youth who are just out of college and into their first jobs — are driving the sharing economy. Renting for them makes more economic sense than buying. 

How Rental Products Work – The Major Players & Their Initiatives

The sharing economy is expanding from cab rides, houses, movies to furniture, appliances, and more. The leasing economy solves the problem of need today. 

  • Furlenco claims to have furnished more than 20,000 homes in the past two years. It has an ambitious goal to scale ten-fold by 2020, entering two lakh homes. Earlier, furniture was owned rather than rented as there was no option. Now, bachelors, who average 28 years of age and constitute 60% of Furlenco’s customers, have the choice of renting furniture via apps. Even newly-married couples, with a joint income of Rs 10 lakh a year, opt to rent furniture, which forms 80% of Furlenco’s business appliances account for the rest.
  • Another rising star in this sector is GrabOnRent – which offers a marketplace for renting projectors, lights, adventure gear, bikes, microwaves, refrigerators, and other appliances, GrabOnRent started in 2015. GrabOnRent claims to have 9,000 users who have leased out 15,000 products. To source products, GrabOnRent has 450 partners, including Godrej Appliances and Micromax. It offers free delivery and pick-up once the rental period is over and takes care of maintenance such as aircon servicing during the duration of the lease. To rent a washing machine costs Rs 649 a month, a refrigerator, Rs 649 per month and a TV, Rs 899.
  • In an overcrowded online fashion space, Stage3.co is trying to carve out a niche by renting. It is avoiding fast fashion to focus on designerwear and leveraging linkages with Bollywood stars and fashion designers to offer exclusive collections on lease for both men and women.Stage3 has a team of 30 in-house designers and also sources unused capacity from others. The bulk of the orders come from Mumbai and Delhi, with 60% of them being repeated. Designer outfit rentals can range between Rs 20,000 to Rs 3,000 for a night.
  • Currently serving 8 cities, Rentomojo offers rentals for furniture, motorbikes, and electronics. The website is regularly updated with new products and though the selection is limited, there are a lot of details available for each product to make an informed decision. Personal gadgets (phones, laptops) can be rented for up to 18 months while other electronic products, motorbikes, and furniture can be rented for up to 36 months. They also offer a ‘rent-to-own option — if you’ve been renting something for 12 months, you can buy and keep the product by paying the balance. Note that home appliances and furniture have to be rented for a minimum of 3 months.
  • Available in 5 cities, Rentickle offers rentals of DSLR cameras, home appliances, and furniture. Like Rentomojo, this one also offers a rental period of up to 36 months for home appliances and furniture. However, DSLRs can be rented for a maximum of 7 days only. The website supports user reviews — you can see reviews for each product before renting. The minimum rental period of home appliances and furniture is 1 month. Another useful feature of the service is that they offer the option of one free relocation of the item during the rental period.

India is being considered the fastest-growing consumer market in Asia. On a rough estimate based on multiple sources, the market for rental of furniture is seen at around $800-850 million. Rentals of electronic appliances are approximately a market of $500 million while that of bikes is $300 million. 

But a growing market means the rental companies will have an increase in clientele. Like most internet-based companies, the rental companies also follow the same approach where the owner never meets the buyer. So in order to authenticate users, KYC collection and verification are a must. But traditional forms of KYC collection can be cumbersome and require a lot of manpower, time, and infrastructure. 

With the advent of digital KYC, it is much easier to automate the KYC collection process. We at Signzy offerRealKYC. Using an AI-based approach, RealKYC not only allows users to upload their KYC information online but the system uses a host of microservices to verify the authenticity of the user and information uploaded.

The rental consumer goods economy has a huge scope in the upcoming years as the majority of the country belongs to the middle-income group with a high propensity to consume. With the public becoming more and more accustomed to internet-based products and services, the digitization of rental services has a promising future indeed.

E-KYC and VideoKYC – The New Era

Most rental companies operate via the Internet and the business model is set up in such a way that the tenant never has to meet the seller. Other than security issues, knowing the customer is important as most users pay online for their rentals. Rental/shared economy operates on a large customer base. To maintain customer data, KYC collection and verification are required. 

With the new government regulations, e-KYC collection is now an easy option for rental companies. At Signzy, we offer a unique e-KYC solution known as RealKYC. The solution offers KYC collection as well as background verification and checks.

Advantages of RealKYC:

  • Secure System: A customer’s account information is secure because the entire process is online. Identity theft, fraud, loan scams, money laundering, the flow of black money, etc. are all minimized with RealKYC.
  • Efficient Communication: Effective information can be relayed in an efficient and timely manner. There is no need for constant back and forth. Most details are published automatically unlike manual KYC.
  • ‘Free of Cost’ Process:  RealKYC verification doesn’t charge any extra amount to the customer. A company or institution may need to pay automation costs of installing verification systems for the long run.
  • Faster processing: The RealKYC service is completely automated online. This means that KYC data can be transferred in real-time without the need for any manual intervention. The paper-based KYC process can take days up to weeks to get verified, but the eKYC process takes just a few minutes to verify and issue.

At Signzy, We have also introduced a new form of KYC verification called VideoKYC. This is a faster and more efficient form of KYC collection and verification. It conducts liveliness checks against the user as well as verifies the identification document against forgeries. The VideoKYC product has gained a lot of recognition and won several awards in recent months.

Advantages of using VideoKYC:

  • Higher Application Accuracy
  • Plug and Play solution, swift Go-To-Market
  • Comprehensive Training Program
  • Competitive Advantage through customer delight
  • 100% compliant with latest RBI Mandate
  • Exponentially increase Scale of Operations
  • Reduced back office overheads (up to 70%)
  • Reduction in customer Drop-offs (up to 50%)
  • Platform Agnostic, support multiple communication channels

Conclusion

With the rapidly advancing technology, the terrain in the rental economy is changing. If companies in the sector decide to adapt to this and use the newer methods for processing and KYC, it will boost their efficiency.

Long-term reduction in costs and the increased pace of processing will attract more customers. This is primarily due to the easier KYC methods we can implement with the use of VideoKYC and other means. Thus, it is only sensible to use technology in taking hold of the future of the rental and shared economy in consumer goods.

About Signzy

Signzy is a market-leading platform redefining the speed, accuracy, and experience of how financial institutions are onboarding customers and businesses – using the digital medium. The company’s award-winning no-code GO platform delivers seamless, end-to-end, and multi-channel onboarding journeys while offering customizable workflows. In addition, it gives these players access to an aggregated marketplace of 240+ bespoke APIs that can be easily added to any workflow with simple widgets.

Signzy is enabling ten million+ end customer and business onboarding every month at a success rate of 99% while reducing the speed to market from 6 months to 3-4 weeks. It works with over 240+ FIs globally, including the 4 largest banks in India, a Top 3 acquiring Bank in the US, and has a robust global partnership with Mastercard and Microsoft. The company’s product team is based out of Bengaluru and has a strong presence in Mumbai, New York, and Dubai.

Visit www.signzy.com for more information about us.

You can reach out to our team at reachout@signzy.com

Written By:

Signzy

Written by an insightful Signzian intent on learning and sharing knowledge.

Overcome Challenges and Implement Best Practices in Customer Onboarding

Posted on | by Signzian

Efficient and robust customer onboarding banking processes are a vital part of any bank’s compliance checks. Having an easy-to-use and seamless onboarding process allows financial institutions such as banks and NBFCs to keep up with the changing economic landscape. In addition, It leads to a solid ROI and creates a more enjoyable experience for the end customer. 

Customers like to see digital experiences across critical services, especially in the finance industry. In the banking and financial services industry, customers now expect digital experiences across critical services. This is especially significant for client onboarding banking, which is the complete process through which an individual begin theirer journey as a customer or client of a bank or financial institution.

Learn about customer onboarding in the banking sector 

Customer onboarding in banking refers to the steps taken by a bank to welcome a new business customer. To comply with KYC standards, this usually entails acquiring important information about the customer and conducting identity checks.

In banking and financial institutions, customer onboarding necessitates proactive communication and participation from several departments within the bank, including credit, operations, compliance, legal, front office, risk, and tax.

According to Forrester’s study, institutions with partial solutions with basic workflows require two to twelve weeks to enroll new clients. New technology has been introduced by many banks in the last few years to create greater efficiency and a better customer experience.

Key challenges in customer onboarding

An inefficient customer onboarding in the banking and financial services sector is resulting in hefty losses in terms of converting engaged customers. Between 2009 and mid-2016, banks were fined more than $200 billion for anti-money laundering violations, which had serious consequences for their onboarding operations. To combat this, banks have begun to tighten their Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and onboarding processes, resulting in a significant increase in onboarding costs. This has harmed the client acquisition process, generating unnecessary delays and long time-to-cash cycles, producing friction in a business customer’s day-to-day operations, and resulting in a significant loss of revenue.

In the rush to optimise their client onboarding banking journey to the point where it is an asset in the struggle to attract new customers and expand market share, banks and financial institutions are falling short. A recent report by HooYu found that:

  • 86% of fintech intend to focus on the effectiveness of customer onboarding while only 43% would like to focus on driving further traffic to the top of the customer onboarding funnel with PPC advertising
  • Modern fintech companies are placing an increased emphasis on integrating onboarding technology providers and A/B testing compared to traditional financial services firms.
  • The single biggest customer onboarding drop-out comes when customers are asked to produce ID documentation. 50% of fintech believe this to be the area of significant customer abandonment.

Here are some of the primary difficulties that banks and their commercial customers experience as a result of the old onboarding process’ inefficiencies:

Customer Challenges

  • Complicated and time-consuming application process without adequate guidance and/or assistance.
  • Restricted communication and lack of transparency in the application process resulting in trust issues.
  • Wastage of time due to abrupt requests for documentation and duplicate/incomplete data entry in the paper-based process.
  • Excessive turn-around-time in customer onboarding impacting business transactions and cash flow.
  • Lack of personalization and proper assessment of the customer’s needs while guiding them through the products and services prompting them to switch banks.

 Bank Challenges

  • Fast evolving regulatory requirements and stringent laws are resulting in complex customer onboarding in banking.
  • Inability to manage customer expectations across digital touchpoints during their various stages of the buying journey.
  • Longer onboarding time leads to lost cross-sell/up-sell opportunities with customers during their initial engagement period when their propensity to sign-up for additional services is high.
  • Missing single-view of the customer information impedes using existing customer data efficiently and any meaningful data analytics to give any conclusive customer insights.
  • Managing frustration due to delays, convoluted processes, and bureaucracy impacts the sales operations, which leads to up to 3/4th of customer onboarding requests not being able to reach fulfillment i.e. final stage of account opening.

Best practices for customer onboarding in banking

An Intuitive Mobile-First Solution

Customers are used to interacting with their phones and are disappointed when they don’t like the initial banking experiences. Almost half of the bank account applicants have abandoned the first few days of application for a bank account. The culprit is paperwork-laden processes that drive consumers to seek out digital-first alternatives.

Even though it is not as large a screen for a smartphone, the application experience should be enjoyable. Favorable mobile application experience limit the number of fields that are displayed on each page. Applications should be as easy to complete on mobile as on a desktop.

A customer can start and finish their banking experience with a simple text message on their mobile phone. Clicking on a link in the message will take the customer to a secured portal where they can do everything from interacting and completing steps to uploading supporting documents and identification.

When applying for a bank account, over half of clients claim they skipped the onboarding process. Cutting-edge banking technology allows customers to begin and finish their transactions with a simple text message from their mobile phone.

Eliminating Paperwork

Flexibility can be offered for how agreement details, legalese, and lengthy terms are presented and reviewed by consumers with the use of digital contract technologies. For example, It’s possible to present TILA disclosure tables in a variety of mobile-friendly formats, with the help of mobile-friendly document generation tools. If the only solution you can come up with is a static PDF that requires a microscope to read on mobile devices, then it should be done differently.

The new solutions enable banks to get legally binding customer consent from wherever they are. The customer can access and sign a secured document by clicking on the link in a text message. Banks can save money and time with the easy process because it eliminates cycle time and compliance exposure. The completion rates for customers are much higher when they use the smart eForms. It’s easy to complete eForms that are mobile-friendly, simplified in their presentation, and leverage autofill and CRM-prefill. Service reps can assist with the customer while also viewing the same form at the same time.

Without missing anything, the smart eForms ensure that the process is complete in a fast and accurate manner. Then eForms can be submitted from any device. In addition to this, terms and conditions can be presented in a format that is more user-friendly instead of having a service rep read them from a script.

Digital KYC

The benefits of digitising the ID collection process are several, the most important of which is that it lowers fraud. Financial associates aren’t always trained to recognise false or invalid identification cards. Financial organisations can confirm that IDs are authentic and relieve their workers of this strain by automating the ID validation process. Furthermore, digital ID collection eliminates the need to scan and file paper copies of identification. Instead, the information can be stored digitally in a more secure and accessible location. Digital ID collecting improves the experience for clients who sign up at a brick and mortar branch or in a remote scenario because it can be done without anyone leaving their seat.

A consumer can use a mobile phone to capture and send photos of their face and driver’s licence for approval with advanced ID verification and authentication systems that include completely automated KYC. Onboarding time is decreased, fraud risk is lowered, and even the most stringent ID and verification requirements are met promptly.

Automation and Real-Time Support

A digital customer onboarding banking process enables data to be pulled from Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems like Salesforce or custom-built solutions to automatically populate contracts for additional services to expand the relationship. For customers, having contract fields already filled in is the ideal experience; it saves time and demonstrates the value of existing banking relationships. For banks, not only do completion rates improve, but re-keyed data errors are also reduced. This enables you to walk the customer through the process step by step, adapt to their needs and risk profiles, and skip questions based on past responses.

When the questioning is finished, the system can use the responses to build a signature-ready agreement for the customer. It’s a streamlined, mobile-friendly way for customers to navigate a difficult application procedure. For banks, it’s a method to boost completion rates, cut support expenses, and lower Not-In-Good-Order (NIGO) rates, all of which minimise the cost and time it takes for manual review and remediation.

Benefits of improving customer onboarding in banking

Consistency: Consistent design and a cohesive domain experience show customers that the application is being offered by someone that they know and can trust. While sharing personal and financial information during the customer onboarding banking process, they should feel secure and confident.

Ease of use: An intuitive application experience makes it easy for the customers to navigate or fill in their details. Seamless applications that allow customers to start and stop the process across platforms to further enhance the overall experience. (e.g. If they start filling out the application on a phone and finish it on a laptop, that’s how it will go.)

Clarity: The ability to connect with someone if the customer needs help is a hallmark of the best customer experiences. At the same time, the communication language used is clear and easy to understand, including error message explanations.

Efficiency: Customers can save time and avoid having to submit documents like account statements by connecting other accounts and pre-filling form blanks. These technologies improve efficiency and speed up the application process by removing needless manual labour.

Redefining customer experience & Future of customer onboarding

For the third year in a row, digital account opening (DAO) is the most popular banking technology. In 2020, almost 80% of all financial institutions will have introduced new DAO systems or modified current ones. – Forbes

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, banks and financial institutions have started realizing the potential of digitization in the customer onboarding banking process. Digital identity solutions enable customers to safely access banking services and help banks offer customer-driven, mobile, and secured services. To provide a hassle-free UX while avoiding identity fraud, FIs need to focus on the following critical areas in their digital services.:

  • Provision of strong identity verification technologies and mechanisms
  • Provision of robust biometric verification
  • Provision of additional verification services for scoring, reputation, and risk management
  • Provision of a frictionless digital user experience for apps and services
  • Ensure that state-of-the-art security checks are performed in accordance with regulations.

When it comes to providing banking services, the better the customer service, the more customers will be willing to start a relationship with the financial institution. Emerging technologies being tested for client onboarding banking have a lot of promise in terms of speeding up the process, reducing duplicate data entry, and improving risk and compliance scoring accuracy.

About Signzy

Signzy is a market-leading platform redefining the speed, accuracy, and experience of how financial institutions are onboarding customers and businesses – using the digital medium. The company’s award-winning no-code GO platform delivers seamless, end-to-end, and multi-channel onboarding journeys while offering customizable workflows. In addition, it gives these players access to an aggregated marketplace of 240+ bespoke APIs that can be easily added to any workflow with simple widgets.

Signzy is enabling ten million+ end customer and business onboarding every month at a success rate of 99% while reducing the speed to market from 6 months to 3-4 weeks. It works with over 240+ FIs globally, including the 4 largest banks in India, a Top 3 acquiring Bank in the US, and has a robust global partnership with Mastercard and Microsoft. The company’s product team is based out of Bengaluru and has a strong presence in Mumbai, New York, and Dubai.

Visit www.signzy.com for more information about us.

You can reach out to our team at reachout@signzy.com.

Written By:

Signzy

Written by an insightful Signzian intent on learning and sharing knowledge.

Onboarding

Optimized Digital Onboarding- An Essential Tool For Sales Boost

Posted on | by Signzian

Customer Onboarding is a crucial aspect of business development. But what executives miss out on is the fact that it can help their salesforce as well. 89% of customers reported that they would pay more for companies with better customer onboarding processes, according to a recent study by Forrester Research. 

Highly engaged customers buy 86% more than unengaged customers. Onboarding is an effective way to attract user interest. Efficient customer onboarding paves ways to develop a loyal customer base. Innovative institutions find methods to improve their existing systems. This article takes a look at how Digital Onboarding affects customer engagement and how we can use it to drive sales.

Customer Onboarding and its effect on Sales

New customers need a stepwise process to guide them to set up and use your product or service. Customer onboarding resolves this need. It takes the customer from the initial sign-up to activation of the product and use. This helps in delivering value as early as possible to the customer. Good customer onboarding ensures setting the TAT(turn around time) to a minimum while covering all the important information useful for the customer.

As each enterprise has different modes of processing, there are different types of customer onboarding. They are the following:

  • On-Site Customer Onboarding is the traditional form of onboarding. The customer approaches a physical store,office, or branch with proof of identity and other documents. The process primarily involves physical entities with a high TAT. A study from HubSpot cites 63% of customers finding this type of onboarding very inconvenient.
  • Hybrid Customer Onboarding uses the digital documents companies offer to the customers. These forms are filled in online and then submitted physically to the concerned office or branch. Even though an improvement upon the traditional method of onboarding, it is still far from deeming a convenience for customers.
  • Digital Onboarding of the customers is a completely digitized process. Customers do not need to visit an office or branch. They can complete the process online from any place of their choice. This does not compromise the safety, guarantee, or credibility. The process is also called Online Onboarding or Remote Onboarding.

Sales are influenced by numerous factors, but the onboarding process profoundly affects sales. What most salesforces miss out on is that closing a sale does not necessarily guarantee a completed onboarding process. It certainly does not guarantee the retention of the customer. The processes and services like customer onboarding following a closed sale are equivalently relevant.

A convenient, swift, and reliable customer onboarding process provides the customer with a delightful experience. It increases the chances of further business and retention. If the customer onboarding ensures all important data points are covered for the customer, later processes can retrieve saved information making them faster and easier to navigate.

In essence, customer onboarding helps improve the quality of obtained customers. It builds trust and preference among the customers. With almost all institutions digitizing their onboarding processes, the competition to improve customer onboarding is cutthroat. Improving even the slightest details in the onboarding process brings forth beneficial outcomes.

Challenges of Digital Onboarding

With the advancements in technology, it is clear that digital onboarding trumps conventional modes of onboarding. It is faster and more secure than its predecessor processes. Yet even digital onboarding has challenges to address and resolve. Some of them include:

  • The transition from physical to digital platforms
  • Minimizing friction in the process
  • Changes in Regulations
  • Avoiding technological stagnation
  • Data Management

Newer customers from older generations find it difficult to understand and process digital onboarding. The transition from physical onboarding to remote and online onboarding is difficult for individuals unfamiliar with newer technology. This demands attention from the onboarding platform.

In the age of information, most people will not wait for delays in processes. If the customers face friction in the onboarding process, they might abandon the journey. Drop-off rates can be as high as 75% during onboarding. It might even end up in customers opting for services from other providers. A churn rate of 5% is expected usually. As much automated as the process may be, there is always a chance of a need for manual intervention. The platform must keep this intervention to a minimum. These hurdles need resolution in the digital onboarding process.

The advancing technology demands that the installed process be updated. We can not expect to install an onboarding process and let it be. It requires constant updates and additional plug-ins to improve. This coupled with the frequent changes in regulatory guidelines ensures that we must avoid technological stagnation.

Many institutions incorporate KYC and AML processes into the journey. This makes it easier for the customer as the whole process will cover multiple requirements. The data is obtained more readily. The obtained data should be stored with high-security measures. This is to avoid all forms of fraud and scams.

Optimized Digital Onboarding- The Boon to Boost Quality Sales

Having a digital onboarding solution is not enough in the prevalent competitive ecosystems. Institutions need to up their games by giving customers the most seamless and fast onboarding journey possible. This is not possible without taking into account the areas of improvement a generic digital onboarding solution has.

Onboarding is not a hurdle for the business, but rather a kit of tools to improve the number of quality sales. If optimized aptly, digital onboarding will increase customer retention and in the long run, overall sales. This is possible only if certain factors are addressed and utilized. They include:

  • TAT- Turn Around Time
  • Processing Friction
  • Regulation Compliance
  • Automation Quality
  • Technological Adaptability
  • Security and Risk Management

A reduced TAT and swift processing encourage customers to begin the onboarding journey. It decreases the activation energy for them. Indeed, what once used to take days or weeks to complete with manual intervention is now done in hours or minutes with digital onboarding. But, even this is further reduced with optimization. Schmick APIs and resources do not just look good but do this. TAT is reduced with better user experience initiatives and quality technology.

User experience and interface design have advanced to an immense degree. This makes the processing friction during the onboarding journey minimal. Unnecessary and cumbersome steps in the process are eliminated without compromising any compliance guidelines. All regulatory compliance measures are updated and integrated into the system. Frequent changes in guidelines are not a problem.

Quality automation and adaptable technology ensure no unprecedented roadblocks. Good technology is good when it goes uninterrupted. With newer machine learning(ML) methods and artificial intelligence(AI), decision-making and rule engines are advanced. They help prioritize necessities and eliminate unnecessary steps.

To prevent fraudulent activities, efficient safety measures are installed. Security becomes a prime concern when the risk is high. Thus, good onboarding resources implement proper risk analysis and management. As all this will be monitored by authorities, compliance is most certainly uncompromised.

These factors drive the customer to establish a healthy and dependable relationship with the enterprise. It helps in customer retention and even newer customer acquisition. Sales increase in numbers when the effort to be invested is minimal. 86% of customers prefer a good onboarding experience over a detailed education on services after they have bought it. 63% of customers demand quality support post-sale and during onboarding. It is the reason they would even consider making the decision. It is also interesting to note that it costs between 5 to 2 times more to acquire a new customer when compared to retaining one.

Hence, a good sale does depend on what comes after. The cretaceous strategies of sales are behind. Customers are aware and demand good products and services with efficient support. A good customer onboarding process not only makes the customer feel good but independent. 

Benefits of Optimized Digital Onboarding

Some of the major benefits of Optimized Digital Onboarding include:

  • Reduced TAT- Processing time is considerably reduced
  • Minimal Processing Friction- With an emphasis on details, processing friction is minimized by eliminating unnecessary steps and procedures.
  • Improved Regulation Compliance- frequently changing regulatory guidelines are no longer a concern. Technology-based compliance is also updated and effective.
  • Quality Automation – State-of-the-art AI with efficient digitization helps improve the overall process.
  • Adapting Technology- All backend features are updated regularly to not fall behind in progress.
  • Fortified Data Security- Customer data is highly secure with quality safety protocols and data management. Sufficient focus is given for fortification.
  • Risk Management- All customer-based risk is managed with priority categorization.

How Can Signzy Help?

It is only sensible to conclude that mere digital onboarding is insufficient to meet today’s customer demands. More optimized processing breeds better sales results and overall experience. But then the major question follows, how do we select the right service provider for Digital onboarding and other processing that can help your business?

We at Signzy, can certainly help you improve your business. Being one of the pioneers in financial and regulatory technologies, Signzy provides you with resources that make processes easier. Our Digital Onboarding solution stays ahead of the curve with prime technology while maintaining a focus on sales boosts too. With an impressive quiver of products and services, we provide you with extremely customizable solutions. These include our suite with 240+ APIs and AI-based resources.

About Signzy

Signzy is a market-leading platform redefining the speed, accuracy, and experience of how financial institutions are onboarding customers and businesses – using the digital medium. The company’s award-winning no-code GO platform delivers seamless, end-to-end, and multi-channel onboarding journeys while offering customizable workflows. In addition, it gives these players access to an aggregated marketplace of 240+ bespoke APIs that can be easily added to any workflow with simple widgets.

Signzy is enabling ten million+ end customer and business onboarding every month at a success rate of 99% while reducing the speed to market from 6 months to 3-4 weeks. It works with over 240+ FIs globally, including the 4 largest banks in India, a Top 3 acquiring Bank in the US, and has a robust global partnership with Mastercard and Microsoft. The company’s product team is based out of Bengaluru and has a strong presence in Mumbai, New York, and Dubai.

Visit www.signzy.com for more information about us.

You can reach out to our team at reachout@signzy.com

Written By:

Signzy

Written by an insightful Signzian intent on learning and sharing knowledge.

Cryptocurrencies

How Can KYC Secure Cryptocurrencies Transactions?

Posted on | by Signzian

With an expected growth projection of nearly USD 24 billion for the blockchain market by 2023, the industry is all set to an exponential start this decade. The terms blockchain and cryptocurrency have had a symbiotic evolution. This has rendered them nearly interchangeable in usage. Nonetheless, we must understand what exactly cryptocurrencies are to understand it’s challenging.

Cryptocurrencies are digital currencies with purchasing and selling value. They use an online ledger and cryptography for secure transactions. With over 10,000 types, they are proliferating in many exchanges and have an estimated total value of more than USD 1.7 trillion as of June 2021.

They use blockchain technology eponymously. This makes them the most modern embodiment of economic advancement. Considering the potential cryptocurrencies have in terraforming the global economy, understanding the associated challenges and improving upon them is essential.

Challenges In The World of Cryptocurrencies

There is an increasing preference for cryptocurrencies in global transactions. The primary reason is the minimal involvement of bureaucracy. A more decentralized approach to monetary interactions also helps. But this can be useful as well as risky. The major challenges are faced during onboarding and include:

  • Financial Fraud
  • Money Laundering
  • Terrorist Funding
  • Government Regulations

Fraud, Laundering, and Terrorist Funding

Cryptocurrencies are used worldwide. Their regulations are different and oftentimes vague than state-issued currencies. Fraudsters are keen on utilizing this as a loophole. It helps them conduct illegal and fraudulent transactions. Cryptocurrencies can be used for money laundering and in some severe cases even terrorist funding. This is a dangerous aspect and regulating such activities requires a careful approach. 

Fraudsters may use false identities, stolen identities, or even shell entities. They transfer money in the form of cryptocurrencies from one international government jurisdiction to another. If not regulated, the entire industry can become a plethora of financial fraud and danger.

Government Regulations

To prevent fraud, cryptocurrencies are traded with stringent guidelines from many governments and authorities. These strict restrictions can severely impede the ease and speed of onboarding customers. It will also increase the minimum activation requirement alienating potential customers and traders.

Cryptocurrency Exchanges require government-issued identification verification along with good financial credibility for their customers. This makes the initial onboarding process heavily cumbersome. If better methods are not explored, the result would be wasted potential clients for the Exchanges.

Verification and KYC

Novel methods are developed to combat financial fraud in cryptocurrency markets. These methods can reduce any money laundering activities and prevent fraudsters from misusing the resources. Brokers consider ways to reduce the risk involved in onboarding a new customer or trader. Methods to verify an individual while avoiding any financial fraud is given below:

  • KYC- Know Your Customer
  • AML- Anti Money Laundering Measures

KYC

KYC helps establish credibility for the customer. This is done by checking their valid identity proofs and other background data. With advancing technology, it is mostly digital. For an industry using blockchain technology, it is only sensible to have efficient digitization of this entire process. Quality digital KYC helps stop all fraudulent or fake individuals from transacting. Thus, the danger is averted and risk is reduced.

AML Measures

Government agencies place Anti-Money Laundering Measures to prevent any form of financial fraud. Many countries might not have specific guidelines for cryptocurrency regulation. But many a time they fall under stringent AML measures. AML is mandatory to prevent any form of massive money laundering. If not complied properly, today’s resources can be used even for terrorist financing. As a matter of fact, measures for CFT-combatting finance of terrorism is a priority criterion for many institutions.

How Signzy Can Help You with Cryptocurrencies Transactions?

The advent of technology is making cryptocurrencies create a revolution in the industry. This makes it all the more needed to identify and verify the participants in the industry. Procedures like KYC and AML will only be effective if the appropriate guidelines are followed. Along with which safety measures need to be imposed. Nations are heading forward with this in mind.

But the catch is that, how do you fulfill all the criteria of regulations and safety while maintaining an easy journey for each customer? This is what we excel at.

We at Signzy give you customizable APIs and other resources that help you conduct safe and compliant KYC, AML, and all other requirements you have. We will help you onboard customers and traders of cryptocurrencies onto your platforms with ease and safety. Our seamless UI will make the journey all the more engaging. With the numerous products, services, and resources in our arsenal, we can make your enterprise better.

About Signzy

Signzy is a market-leading platform redefining the speed, accuracy, and experience of how financial institutions are onboarding customers and businesses – using the digital medium. The company’s award-winning no-code GO platform delivers seamless, end-to-end, and multi-channel onboarding journeys while offering customizable workflows. In addition, it gives these players access to an aggregated marketplace of 240+ bespoke APIs that can be easily added to any workflow with simple widgets.

Signzy is enabling ten million+ end customer and business onboarding every month at a success rate of 99% while reducing the speed to market from 6 months to 3-4 weeks. It works with over 240+ FIs globally, including the 4 largest banks in India, a Top 3 acquiring Bank in the US, and has a robust global partnership with Mastercard and Microsoft. The company’s product team is based out of Bengaluru and has a strong presence in Mumbai, New York, and Dubai.

Visit www.signzy.com for more information about us.

You can reach out to our team at reachout@signzy.com

Written By:

Signzy

Written by an insightful Signzian intent on learning and sharing knowledge.

Bankrupting terrorism with Best KYC and AML practices

Posted on | by Signzian

AML compliance has been at the forefront to fight the threat of global terrorism. No wonder Governments across the world take it seriously. In 2018, U.S. Bancorp agreed to pay $613 million in penalties for a faulty KYC AML check.

According to the American Banker, U.S. Bancorp had already provided for $600 million in its books, related to expected enforcement action by regulators. Not financial loss, such non-compliance erodes customer trust and confidence, too. Many times, the reasons for non-compliance go beyond intent. It is an operational issue.

For example, OakNorth Bank had disconnected screening systems. One team handled anti-money laundering checks and another handled customer screening checks. Its screening and continuous monitoring processes to determine if customers are a Politically Exposed Person (PEP) were in place for its savings activities. OakNorth Bank did not have an option. It had to integrate its current tech stack and condense data into a single view, for compliance.

Technology has created a world of extraordinary economic opportunity. It has connected businesses and customers over traditional boundaries of language and geography. On the flip side, it has also aided the growth of global terrorism and crime. This has increased the danger and complexity of doing business around the world. 

Businesses are under pressure to identify, assess, and comprehend exactly who they’re doing business with, to battle the international threat of terrorism and financial crime. Banks and financial institutions are facing this situation for KYC AML check.

KYC is a subset of AML

It is understandable that AML and KYC are often confused. It is partly because the two acronyms are used together in the context of compliance and financial fraud. AML is a broader discipline that encompasses KYC. Here is a quick capture.

AML

AML refers to the procedures taken by financial institutions and governments. It is to prevent and combat financial crimes, including money laundering and terrorism financing. In the fight against organized crime and terrorism, anti-money laundering (AML) procedures are an important part of any financial compliance program. According to the United Nations, between $800 billion and $2 trillion (2–5% of global GDP) is laundered each year around the world.

KYC

The process of authenticating a customer’s identification is KYC, or “Know Your Customer.” To use a company’s service, each client must supply credentials such as identification documents. KYC verification procedures assist with anti-money laundering. It gives a framework for financial institutions to meet ever-changing regulations. It applies to Fintech also. Because Fintech firms provide financial services, AML regulations need them to authenticate their customers’ identities before providing their services. This ensures they are dealing with legitimate businesses.

KYC AML check best practices

What is the need for KYC AML check best practices? How do you measure success?

The clear response is that you avoid a penalty for non-compliance with regulations. It also keeps laundered funds out of the financial system. Thus, protecting civil society from crimes.

Is the above enough? Should banks stop with the minimum compliance requirements? Are there methods to improve the business while complying with? There is value to leverage best practices that are dependable, efficient, and cost-effective.

Comply 100% to the Current AML Regime

AML compliance is the least minimum banks must achieve. Slip-ups invite hefty fines. Reputation also suffers. The cost of non-compliance far exceeds the cost of compliance. Banks can add value to this ‘cost’ function by getting more business insights out of compliance. Banks can make operational improvements with technology to comply better at a lesser cost. The current AML compliance regime in the United States covers the following.

  • KYC
  • Reporting – Financial institutions file currency reports and report suspicious transactions through Suspicious Activity Reports (SAR)
  • “Follow the money” thereby maintaining a paper trail by keeping appropriate records of financial transactions.
  • Internal controls in line with the Banking Secrecy Act (BSA)

A shared Know Your Customer/Customer Due Diligence (KYC/CDD)

The Signzy blog has written at length about KYC. The need for identity verification cannot be overemphasized. Rogue identities, false identities, and misrepresented identities, all can put paid to the proper functioning of the global financial system. KYC is the first and the most critical step, to prevent the entry of rogue elements.

Banks are expected to have a robust customer identification program. Banks should demand government-issued identification. They should also examine whether extra information is required. This information could include occupation, employer, and business affiliations. For low-risk customers, simplified due diligence is enough. But, in other high-risk cases, basic and sometimes enhanced due diligence (EDD) becomes necessary. This comes at an increased cost of business to banks.

Banks are pooling resources to tackle customer due diligence (CDD) requirements. Statutory bodies like The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) are also supporting these initiatives. It seems logical. If one Bank has made all the efforts to KYC, other banks can piggyback. Such a shared KYC improves risk management and financial inclusion. This shared KYC can be executed in the following ways:

  • Centralized agency approach that pools KYC across banks,
  • Multilateral information sharing across banks,
  • A combination of the above

Customer data sharing guidelines and internal compliance requirements especially for global banks might hinder such initiatives.

Reporting and Audit

Approximately, $85 trillion was the global GDP in 2020. The United States accounted for almost one-fourth of it. It is a staggering amount of money. Banks and financial institutions are instrumental to money flows that eventually contribute to the world economy.

Imagine, keeping a track of billions of transactions that make up the world economy. It is a tall task. This scale throws up the following challenges.

  • Automation – Because manual steps for this sheer scale are prone to errors of omission and commission
  • Documentation – To maintain paper-trail to help ‘follow the money.’
  • Monitoring – To ensure compliance and proactive identification of high-risk transactions

Automation

It is virtually impossible to use manual methods to meet the sheer volume of compliance reporting and audit requirements. Other than feasibility, other factors emerge too – mistakes and time. Banks use AML software to automate all their AML compliance activities. The software also prepares them to scale compliance with the change in rules and regulations. Such software is custom-built with preferred vendors. Banks also develop this internally with their technology teams. AML automation software boosts speed, efficiency, and prepares the organization to handle increasing volumes of data.

Documentation

AML compliance features are designed to enable law enforcement agencies to pursue investigations for civil and criminal penalties if warranted. The features are detailed enough to provide evidence useful in prosecuting money laundering and other financial crimes. This requires institutions to collect, store and analyze large amounts of KYC data as part of the customer onboarding process. Additionally, there is the need to store data related to transactions in line with the typologies that form part of the law/guidelines. The overall idea is that Banks should be competent to furnish necessary information via reporting, or when called for. AML Software ensures that no transaction howsoever trivial goes unnoticed and undocumented.

Monitoring

Monitoring is a nightmare. Because it isn’t just compliance that a bank has to deal with. Internal risk measures are also at play. From a regulatory perspective, the activities that Banks have to monitor are broad. It includes,

  • Illegal activities
  • Suspicious transactions
  • Transactions above financial thresholds
  • Unusual activity

AML software can address most of the hygiene ‘black and white’ monitoring requirements. It is the ambiguous ‘grey area’ activities that need more sophistication. Machine learning models (ML) can come to the rescue here. ML models can continuously learn from structured and unstructured data, thereby flagging suspicious and unusual transactions. This will ensure proactive compliance and aggressive redressal of risks.

Correct False Positives

A Dow Jones-sponsored ACAMS [CAMS (Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialist) is the global gold standard in AML certifications] survey done a few years ago reveals that false positives are one of the most challenging aspects of KYC AML checks for bank compliance teams. False positives are a drain on a bank’s resources in its pursuit to track down money-laundering criminals. It is not difficult to understand why false positives are a problem.

Historically, rule-based models in line with regulations, flag off customer activities. It is usually based on value and frequency. Money laundering criminals are far smarter than that. Soon, bank systems tend to lag in detecting suspicious behaviors by account holders.

Continuously evolving customer risk-rating models could be one way to solve this problem. Mckinsey proposed a framework on how banks can approach building their customer risk-rating models. The best practices proposed by Mckinsey include simple ideas like data quality and simple model architecture. The best practices also include advanced ones like network science tools. Mckinsey goes on to identify the maturity level of the institutions implementing such customer risk-rating models. The maturity levels – Horizon 1,2,3 – indicate the effectiveness and efficiency of the implementing institutions. Banks would do well to reflect on how they can move up the maturity curve in identifying false positives, thus boosting productivity.

Balance Customer Experience with Compliance

AML compliance is not a trade-off. It does interfere with customer experience. But, it isn’t something banks can de-prioritize. If a high-value customer’s transactions look unusual, that will need to be screened and reported. Even during the KYC process, it is important to manage customer expectations. Proper systems and trained personnel can help. Customer drop-outs are a fallout of such measures. Banks have to identify and invest in the right kind of digital onboarding software, to minimize dropouts. At the same time, banks should prepare to accept drop-outs as the intended outcomes of a larger compliance culture.

AML will evolve

Criminal interests will undoubtedly keep anti-money laundering professionals on their toes. A certificate program in anti-money laundering is a testimony to this. Over the last two decades, right from 9/11 to the credit crisis, AML has evolved for the better. New rules and regulations have gotten added to the AML playbook year after year. Banks in the US are exploring Blockchain technologies to stay ahead of the curve to balance the ever-increasing challenge of AML compliance and associated costs. 

AML proponents have claimed that AML related restrictions have been successful in enabling the fight against terrorism since 9/11. Critics however demand more evidence. Let the debate continue.

About Signzy

Signzy is a market-leading platform redefining the speed, accuracy, and experience of how financial institutions are onboarding customers and businesses – using the digital medium. The company’s award-winning no-code GO platform delivers seamless, end-to-end, and multi-channel onboarding journeys while offering customizable workflows. In addition, it gives these players access to an aggregated marketplace of 240+ bespoke APIs that can be easily added to any workflow with simple widgets.

Signzy is enabling ten million+ end customer and business onboarding every month at a success rate of 99% while reducing the speed to market from 6 months to 3-4 weeks. It works with over 240+ FIs globally, including the 4 largest banks in India, a Top 3 acquiring Bank in the US, and has a robust global partnership with Mastercard and Microsoft. The company’s product team is based out of Bengaluru and has a strong presence in Mumbai, New York, and Dubai.

Visit www.signzy.com for more information about us.

You can reach out to our team at reachout@signzy.com

Written By:

Written by an insightful Signzian intent on learning and sharing knowledge.

Bowling Out Fraudsters With Blockchain- How To Prevent Unauthorized Financial Transactions

Posted on | by Signzian

Within the first 2 months since the onset of the unexpected pandemic in 2020, attempted unauthorized and fraudulent transactions increased by 35%. If the trend continues frauds due to unauthorized transactions are expected to reach a global high of $40 billion by 2027.

A transaction that was not authorized or permitted by the holder of the concerned account or money is called an unauthorized transaction. It occurs in most transactional and credit card frauds. Governments and financial institutions across the globe are struggling to stop such activities.

How Do Unauthorized Financial Transactions Occur

In the past, most cases of unauthorized transactions occurred as a result of credit card theft. But in more recent years, the majority of unauthorized and fraudulent transactions occur through online portals after the user’s data is stolen through means such as phishing or hacking.

This can happen while the customer or user is providing zis information to a service provider or government portal. The stolen information may lay dormant for weeks or months before the fraudster uses it for an unauthorized transaction.

How Does It Impact The Financial Industry?

Unauthorized transactions are mostly associated with money transfer fraud and credit card fraud. An average of 35% of American consumers fall victim to credit card fraud according to a study from The Ascent. 

The issue with this is not just in terms of the financial losses incurred to users and institutions, but also the leak of crucial and private data. The years between 2005 and 2019 saw over 1.6 billion records compromised. By 2020, this resulted in more than $42 billion in losses world wide.This is statistically dangerous for safe transactions and the fraudsters took opportunity during the global pandemic.

It seems that the trend is not decelerating any time soon as is evident from the 161% increase in credit card frauds last year alone. Unless the concerned authorities and consumers take action, the danger lingers. The solution might be more bizarre, yet efficient than we presume.

How Blockchain Technology Proffers The Solution To Unauthorized Financial Transaction

Blockchains are growing lists of records that are linked through cryptography. These records are called blocks and contain a timestamp, transaction data and a cryptographic hash that helps map the data. They are mostly used in cryptocurrencies and their transactions but can be used for other financial interactions as well.

Blockchain is considered secure and tamper-proof while pertaining to digital records. It is a complete and unchanging record of transfers. If blockchain can underpin a payments processing service, it could trace the whole sequence of previous wire transfers. 

However, most governments and authorities want a trail of funds to stop money laundering, which is impossible in the blockchain. The whole purpose of blockchain is decentralization and officials demand the source of funds to charge taxes and run governments.

We are experiencing an innovative renaissance in technology. It is only wise to adapt to the changing world. Conclusively, it is not merely blockchain that can help improve financial services, but the numerous options available in technology. But how do we find a good resource provider?

Why Signzy is the Solution For You

Being one of the pioneers in financial and regulatory technologies, Signzy provides you with resources that make processes easier. With an impressive quiver of products and services, we provide you with extremely customizable solutions. These include the numerous APIs and the No-Code AI rule engine we have for you.

Our state of the art Video KYC and Verification solutions are foolproof and secure. If you seek a fortified yet simple process for verification we have multiple APIs for almost all OVD documents including Aadhar, Driving License, Passport, etc. We can help you make your vision of safe, secure and seamless verification processes a reality.

About Signzy

Signzy is a market-leading platform redefining the speed, accuracy, and experience of how financial institutions are onboarding customers and businesses – using the digital medium. The company’s award-winning no-code GO platform delivers seamless, end-to-end, and multi-channel onboarding journeys while offering customizable workflows. In addition, it gives these players access to an aggregated marketplace of 240+ bespoke APIs that can be easily added to any workflow with simple widgets.

Signzy is enabling ten million+ end customer and business onboarding every month at a success rate of 99% while reducing the speed to market from 6 months to 3-4 weeks. It works with over 240+ FIs globally, including the 4 largest banks in India, a Top 3 acquiring Bank in the US, and has a robust global partnership with Mastercard and Microsoft. The company’s product team is based out of Bengaluru and has a strong presence in Mumbai, New York, and Dubai.

Visit www.signzy.com for more information about us.

You can reach out to our team at reachout@signzy.com

Written By:

Signzy

Written by an insightful Signzian intent on learning and sharing knowledge.

Leveraging Technology & Tackling Money Laundering

Leveraging Technology & Tackling Money Laundering

Posted on | by Signzian

Last year Forbes reported that 2% to 5% of the world’s GDP is laundered every year. This estimates to an amount between $800 billion and $2 trillion. The astounding fact about the report was that only 10% of the laundered money is detected, implying more than 90% of the laundered money is unknown to most regulatory bodies and financial institutions.

Money laundering is a major issue in the world. Governments are striving to find newer methods to tackle it. Most financial institutions and companies are accustomed to traditional methods for preventing money laundering. These include in-person verification or traditional automation.

But with the advent of advanced technologies like AI and Machine Learning, they have to adapt for better results. The latest technology integrated Suspicious Activity Reports(SARs) caused more than 31% of laundered money to be blocked.

Thus the need for technology in preventing money laundering is not a matter of if, but when. But how do we do it? What technological tool can we use? Here comes Application Programming Interfaces(APIs) for the financial industry. This article explores what AML screening solutions APIs are and how they can help in preventing money laundering.

Why Is AML Essential In The Financial Industry?

Anti-Money Laundering includes all measures taken by authorities, institutions and individuals to prevent financial criminals from disguising and hiding illegally obtained money as legitimate income. It is essential as money laundering is a financial crime that affects the economy on a microscale as well as momentous levels. The methods of money laundering are transforming with the development of technology. It is only essential that AML screening solutions up their game too.

In July 1989, many nations came together to form the Financial Action Task Force(FATF). The summit was held in Paris and aimed at analysing laundering risks and preventing them with AML measures and AML screening solutions. But after the 9/11 attacks, in October 2001 the FATF updated their agenda and mission to include modes to stop terrorist funding through money laundering. AML procedures have been made better through the decades since.

The European Union also acknowledged and implemented the first AML directive in 1990. It prevented using the flaws in the financial system for laundering. Now The Union is one of the pioneers in revising and upgrading AML measures to reduce risk and terrorist funding. The International Monetary Fund(IMF) with its 189 member states also takes initiatives for AML with compliance measures for financial institutions. Thus all governments are forced to ensure compliance and all institutions are expected to follow suit.

In 2019 the US State Department published a report stating general AML measures succeeded only 0.2% because of non-compliance and inefficient processes. More than 85% of the 11500 companies evaluated in the US were not AML compliant. 2019 also saw AML non-compliant banks paying more than $6.2 Billion in fines globally.

What Is The AML Process And Why Is Compliance Important?

Government bodies and other regulators provide guidelines and procedures that companies and financial institutions can follow to prevent money laundering.

  • One of the most important and effective processes is Know Your Customer(KYC). KYC ensures that companies know who their customer is by verifying his financial data with pre-existing credible databases. This way any suspicious activity by the customer can be red-flagged easily.
  • Customer Due Diligence(CDD) is also a relevant procedure for AML. Companies evaluate the risk involved with each customer and take necessary measures. This is the process of CDD. They categorize customers as low, moderate or high risk. For example, a Politically Exposed Person(PEP) falls under the high-risk umbrella.
  • Another measure is setting a limit for transactions to be monitored. For example, in the US any transaction of more than $10,000 is reported by the institution to the authorities for monitoring. Each country has such a limit to detect any massive fraud. Thus, monitoring and reviewing customer transactions without compromising privacy is very important to prevent AML. If any suspicious activity is detected, then an activity report is generated and transferred to the Compliance and Risk Department.

It is of incredible significance that financial companies follow all the regulatory compliance guidelines for AML. Even a single discrepancy can result in dangerous repercussions. Money Laundering is no longer just for the money. It can even be used as a wrench in the equilibrium of world peace. Besides this, if companies don’t comply they are charged heavy fines by regulatory bodies. AML fines amounted to $4.27 billion in 2018 which nearly doubled in 2019 to $8 billion. This is a collective effort and even the smallest of the financial institutions need to play their part well by following the compliance guidelines.

How Are APIs Used To Help Prevent Money Laundering?

Software connections between computer programs or even computers are called Application Programming Interfaces(APIs). It offers services to other software once it is integrated into a working system. It can be grossly described as an intermediary software that helps other applications communicate among themselves. They are used in almost all companies with a demand for any form of software technology.

AML screening solution APIs are taking over not just the financial sector, but any industry interested in innovative automation. This is because APIs offer agility and more importantly scalability for companies. Recently, after several government policy amendments, APIs are starting to play crucial roles in AML and KYC compliance. This is because the verification of tens of thousands of customers is not practical with traditional processes.

APIs are used for almost all forms of innovative verification procedures. It ensures that processing is efficient without human error. Since it can be replicated on a large scale, it becomes commercially viable. In addition to this most APIs can be procured at affordable prices. Hence, be it a large bank or a small financial institution, automation is simple and inexpensive. APIs help all businesses Combat Financial Terrorism(CFT) at a modest price.

They are in high demand among elite institutions because they offer swifter and inexpensive methods to ensure services meeting customer demands. Since they are adaptable and customizable, they do get an advantage of future-proofing. In the Financial category alone, more than 2000 types of APIs are used across the globe. This will exponentially grow with advancements in AI, Machine Learning and Blockchain technology.

APIs In AML And Regulatory Compliance

Improved user-friendly APIs are available in the industry now. But it needs to fulfil another crucial criterion for integration into any service or product- Regulatory Compliance. Across the world, there are numerous regulatory guidelines for financial institutions. A good example is the PSD2 changes in Europe. Not only are companies encouraged to accomplish more with AML screening solutions and related technologies, but are fined for any lack of compliance on their part.

Financial Institutions that wait and observe if the new technology trends will be left behind in the race. The most adaptable companies will flourish in the long run. Traditional modes of in-person verification processes and human error packed execution are outdated. APIs can automate almost the entire processes saving companies time and money. On an estimate, more than $500 million is spent by financial institutions for financial crime prevention and compliance requirements.

What Are The Benefits Of Using APIs For AML?

APIs do not merely automate the AML and regulatory processes. They enhance them. There are numerous benefits associated with using APIs for AML and verification processes. They include:

  • TAT is reduced resulting in quicker processing and better customer journey.
  • Near zero human error
  • The extremely customizable nature of APIs makes integration easy.
  • Inexpensive in the long term.
  • The human workforce can focus on discrepancies rather than regular workflow, increasing efficiency.
  • Eliminates all storage spaces as all documentation will be in soft copies.
  • The better customer onboarding experience
  • Better user interface

How Can Signzy Help You?

We offer numerous services, products and AML screening solutions APIs that are useful for your ventures. We Make sure that they are state of the art, because we do not compromise quality. Signzy’s quiver of APIs and associated products are incredibly customizable. You can select which specific APIs suit your requirement and then integrate them into the required systems.

With over 240+ microservice APIs alone, the collection is diverse and versatile. All of our products meet regulatory compliance standards without compromise. But we make sure that the user would not be troubled with inefficient customer journeys. Our systems are efficient and seamless rendering the user experience truly satisfying.

With advancing technology financial institutions and companies deem change. If you do not opt for the right changes, the entire entity’s progress would decelerate. That’s why we at Signzy ensure that you get that which suits your needs. We can make your customer’s journeys easy while making your aspirations easier.

About Signzy

Signzy is a market-leading platform redefining the speed, accuracy, and experience of how financial institutions are onboarding customers and businesses – using the digital medium. The company’s award-winning no-code GO platform delivers seamless, end-to-end, and multi-channel onboarding journeys while offering customizable workflows. In addition, it gives these players access to an aggregated marketplace of 240+ bespoke APIs that can be easily added to any workflow with simple widgets.

Signzy is enabling ten million+ end customer and business onboarding every month at a success rate of 99% while reducing the speed to market from 6 months to 3-4 weeks. It works with over 240+ FIs globally, including the 4 largest banks in India, a Top 3 acquiring Bank in the US, and has a robust global partnership with Mastercard and Microsoft. The company’s product team is based out of Bengaluru and has a strong presence in Mumbai, New York, and Dubai.

Visit www.signzy.com for more information about us.

You can reach out to our team at reachout@signzy.com

Written By:

Signzy

Written by an insightful Signzian intent on learning and sharing knowledge.

Revving Ahead With Digitization- How To Revolutionize Verification In The Vehicular Industry

Posted on | by Signzian

Introduction

Being the 6th biggest manufacturer of motor vehicles, the Indian Vehicular Industry is a behemoth with a $118 billion value estimation. The fact that this is expected to skyrocket to $300 billion by 2025 makes it an unleashed beast.

The current process of customer onboarding and underwriting involves multiple physical parameters with the in-person involvement of the client and the assigned agent. But with novel technologies and cutthroat competition on the rise, it is time insurers decide to upgrade their game. This article focuses on the current market of automobile verification, its challenges and the solution.

The Current Market for Vehicles in India

By 2021 India is expected to become the 3rd largest passenger vehicle market in the world. 2019 saw a 2.7% increase in production in the industry as compared to the previous financial year.

The industry is in a state of growth and it is the right time to take the initiative and utilise it. The current modes of processing can be upgraded with technology. This will help flourish in a cutthroat market like India.

The Primary Players In The Indian Vehicular Industry

There are numerous automobile companies competing in the Indian market. The top ones are:

  • With revenue of near Rs.300,000 Crore, Tata Motors Ltd. takes the lion’s share of the market. Tata currently has a 6.3% and 45.1% market share in passenger and commercial vehicles sectors, respectively.
  • Maruti Suzuki India Ltd dominates the passenger vehicles market with over 50% in market share. The Rs.83,281 crore revenue and a market cap of nearly Rs.200,000 crore is an impressive aspect.
  • Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd also holds a big chunk of the market with revenue heading over Rs53,000 crore and a market cap reaching more than Rs. 70,000 crore.
  • The two-wheeler giant Hero MotoCorp Ltd comes on top of its specific niche with 36% of the market share. The Rs 32,871 crore revenue and the 57,180 crore market cap is impressive for a primary two-wheeler manufacturer.
  • Other honourable mentions include Bajaj Auto Ltd, Ashok Leyland Ltd, TVS Motor Company Ltd, etc

What Are The Challenges Of The Industry

As is with most industries, the challenges in the vehicular industry also play a lot in parallel with the adoption of technology. Gone are the old days of physical processing of documentation and verification. With the advancing technology, the terrain is entirely changing.

Insurers must ensure that they can survive the peer competition. Technological services are available for verification and other related processes. But the coding required coupled with the complexity and unavailability of resources from a single portal is frustrating.

Why Is Signzy The Solution?

The solution to technological hurdles is not simply newer technology. It is the right newer technology. Signzy can provide this. With a quiver of products and resources, we can provide you with the state of the art technology while properly understanding your requirements.

Beginning with customer verification using OVDs such as driving license to the verification of the vehicle registration, Signzy’s plethora of APIs will suit you. APIs like DL verification API and Vehicle Registration APIs use government and other databases to cross verify the user’s credibility while maintaining the process seamless.

Since the Signzy portal is extremely customizable you can choose from the arsenal of APIs and other resources. This will help you avoid unnecessary roadblocks. The No-Code AI rule engine that we deploy makes integration and access easy and efficient. Signzy can make your verification processes seamless while maintaining the best security you can obtain.

About Signzy

Signzy is a market-leading platform redefining the speed, accuracy, and experience of how financial institutions are onboarding customers and businesses – using the digital medium. The company’s award-winning no-code GO platform delivers seamless, end-to-end, and multi-channel onboarding journeys while offering customizable workflows. In addition, it gives these players access to an aggregated marketplace of 240+ bespoke APIs that can be easily added to any workflow with simple widgets.

Signzy is enabling ten million+ end customer and business onboarding every month at a success rate of 99% while reducing the speed to market from 6 months to 3-4 weeks. It works with over 240+ FIs globally, including the 4 largest banks in India, a Top 3 acquiring Bank in the US, and has a robust global partnership with Mastercard and Microsoft. The company’s product team is based out of Bengaluru and has a strong presence in Mumbai, New York, and Dubai.

Visit www.signzy.com for more information about us.

You can reach out to our team at reachout@signzy.com

Written By:

Signzy

Written by an insightful Signzian intent on learning and sharing knowledge.

How To Choose The Right Service Provider For ID Verification

Posted on | by Signzian

With a stunning Compound Annual Growth Rate(CAGR) of 15.6%, the global ID Verification market size is set to grow from USD 7.6 billion (2020) to USD 15.8 billion in 5 years. Along with this, the fraud risk accompanying it will also grow. It is only sensible for financial institutions to take precautionary measures to prevent this.

The first and foremost measure is to ensure the right identity verification services. All successful financial institutions and businesses use a legit and established identity verification service. It confirms that the customer or user-provided information is that of the individual they claim to be by associating it with the identity of the genuine person. The documents used for this can be OVDs like driving license, passport or any national issued document.

With the current trying times, it is important to prevent fraud with the help of such service providers. But the real question is how do you know which one is right for you. In the field of competent marketing, finding a competent service is difficult. This article will simplify that for you by giving you the right parameters to consider while selecting a service provider.

Challenges in ID Verification

Mere identity verification has transformed itself into a digital sphere. This is a result of digitization in all aspects of the financial world. One of the principal reasons for this is the undeniable need for financial institutions to ensure safety from potential fraud and damages. This explains their extensive interest in promoting the safe digitization of their processes.

This coupled with novel databases created by government agencies, institutions and many banks for credit score validation. The initial 6 months of 2019 witnessed 3800 incidents of financial fraud and credit score tampering incidents. This was reported by Risk Based Security. This report, when compared to the previous year’s, illuminates alarming facts. Within a span of 12 months, the number of breaches rocketed 54%. 

2019 was also the year with the 3 largest financial data breach, with 3.2 billion confidential records exposed. 84.6% of these breeches originated from the business sector alone. Concerns about safety and security, along with the need for convenience in a competitive playing field, have forced financial institutions and companies to embrace digitization. It is true that the risk of fraud is an imminent and lasting threat. So is the fact that there will be no bulletproof solution.

But we can not expect not to take the necessary precautions and actions. This is why the authentication of customers needs more data and layers of validation. To meet such profound validation criteria while maintaining a good and easy experience for the user is difficult for the institution. Users always have a standard expectation for the products and services they get. To go beyond this is what companies need to make them unique.

While facing these challenges another arises in the form of personal data protection. This has become the penultimate need barring only the actual act of verification. It is an immensely volatile task, but nonetheless a mandatory one.

Considerations to keep in mind before choosing a solution?

The solution to the challenges for a financial institution can be simplified in one word- Digitization. But the pragmatic implementation of this is far more complex without a proper guide. There are distinct steps they need to take before finalizing a verification solution from the numerous ones in the market. These require close scrutiny and articulate decisions. The initiatives to consider while making a choice are given below:

  • Evaluate the requirements
  • Maintain the right balance between User Experience, Safety and Security
  • Acknowledge User behaviour and Channels

Evaluate the Requirements

It is quite apparent that not all cases require the same standards of security validation. But for financial institutions the number of use cases requiring stringent security measures is high. A good example is the provision of online loans and how easy it may seem to the user but how complex it is from the service provider’s part. The process requires information relay and verification through multiple data sources.

The solution is to engage the customer with the right questions. This will give the customer a better experience while obtaining the required data. This implies that the institutions should make proper assessments regarding what information they require. This can eliminate unnecessary steps.

We should assume that more information will be more useful and focus on the right information. Such assumptions sometimes create more friction than what we try to avoid.

Maintain the right balance between User Experience, Safety and Security

Balancing the user experience while obtaining the right information with ease is tricky for even the most advanced procedures available. But it is achievable to a highly optimized degree. Some of the factors to consider while forming different steps in the process are:

  • Relevance of the data to be obtained
  • Mode of obtaining the data
  • Easy accessibility

A good example is setting a threshold for facial verification. Since images will have certain differences, there will always remain a minimal unmatch. Thus a minimum threshold is set. If the threshold is too high, even mostly matching images would be rejected. This will ultimately provide a bad user experience.

The solution to the above conundrum is to have a high functioning AI-driven rule engine while setting a pragmatic threshold limit. This will ensure better customer focus and seamless onboarding journeys.

Acknowledge User behaviour and Channels

An omnichannel presence between the user and the interface is primordial. It will help us understand how the journey impacts the user. We will be able to understand the habits and behaviours of the user. These habits include the use of a phone, tablet or desktop. The journey process must be optimised for each different device.

The verification process should be fit for the channels the company uses. If it is incompatible, then the experience will be troublesome. A good feedback system will help understand the customer’s pain points. Once this is done we can implement a better experience by avoiding any potential hurdles.

What are the parameters of the solution?

Before finalising a solution for digital identity verification, we must always consider certain aspects. The most vital parameters are given below:

  • The Service Provider’s Technology Quiver
  • Processing in Real-Time
  • Ensured Compatibility and Compliance
  • Efficient Support System

The Service Provider’s Technology Quiver

Multiple forms of solutions are available for identity verification. Each institution requires its own unique set of technological needs. Not every solution provider will be able to meet all the needs of the institution. The development tools to use and methods of integrating 3rd party solutions need consideration.

The service provider’s Software Development Kits(SDKs) or better, Application Programming Interfaces(APIs) should be easy to use and serve a seamless plug and play solution. They should provide products that are understandable to the institution and the user. The identity provider should take care of the underlying technology while maintaining strict regulatory compliance.

Fundamentally, technology should not be a hurdle for the institution as well as the user. It is the responsibility of the provider to make sure of this. Make sure that the services you need are digitally provided.

Processing in Real-Time

Opting for service providers who ensure that most of the processing in real-time is a safer bet in the long run. Not only does this make it harder for any potential fraudsters, but also ensure the right attributes like device location, IP address and avoidance of pre-recorded videos.

The ability to exactly identify the user at the exact moment we require is a boon. The risk of danger is considerably reduced with this feature.

Ensured Compatibility and Compliance

Even though the processing steps vary with each service provider, the regulatory framework demands to have stringent compliance in regards to sensitive and personal information. This is done with proper encryption protocols and interlay with different government and external databases. These can be even international watchlists and credit bureaus.

Verifying and cross-checking the user’s data with the existing databases is essential. This will prevent fraud and validate the credibility of the user. Thus, the relevance of unified data sources is paramount for consideration. A good service provider will keep this a priority.

Updated Support System

The technology involved in digital identity verification systems is evolving. The techniques used by fraudsters to breach these systems are also evolving too. Hence, it is only safe to opt for providers that constantly improve and innovate their services while maintaining newer regulatory standards. They need to keep up with the latest UX and UI trends.

The provider should mandatorily have a live support system for the companies and clients. They should ensure transparent, frequent communication between all parties without any technical difficulties. It will help to investigate the services and products from the provider.

What is the right solution for you?

Now that the parameters to consider while choosing an identity verification service is clear it might seem easier to find an option. But there are numerous identity verification service providers out in the market and only a handful of them are able to maintain exact regulatory compliance and compatibility. Even fewer are able to provide a paragon user experience.

Thus, it might seem arduous to find a service provider who would satisfy all your process demands. You would require an institution with an arsenal of numerous APIs and products. 

With a cornucopia of multifaceted APIs, products and service solutions, Signzy has been able to help all our clients in the best ways possible. WIth no-code AI services and smart decision engines, even the back-end operations are smooth with Signzy. With observation and use case histories, even you will conclude the same. If an identity verification service is your need, we can provide the solution through our service.

 

Signzy’s New-edge Solutions for Logistics Industry

Posted on | by Signzian

The logistics industry indulges in the overall process of managing how resources are acquired, stored, and transported to their final destination. Logistics is now used widely in the business sector, particularly by companies in the manufacturing sector, to refer to how resources are handled and moved along the supply chain.

Where Does The Indian Logistics Industry Stand?

The logistics market in India is expected to grow at a CAGR of 10.5% between 2019 and 2025. E-commerce is another major segment that is expected to support the growth of the logistics industry during the forecast period. Increasing investment and trade point towards a healthy outlook for the Indian freight sector.

Who Are The Major Players?

A few of the major players from logistics in India are Allcargo Logistics Ltd.Container Corporation of India Ltd, DHL Express India Pvt, Blue Dart Express Ltd, FedEx, TSCS India Pvt Ltd, Gati Ltd, Transport Corporation of India among others.

What Are The Current Challenges?

Like all other industries, there are several challenges faced by logistics too. A survey was conducted by  ByteMaster. After interviewing companies in the transport and storage sector, they concluded that the five main challenges faced by companies in the logistics sector are: traceability, planning, agile procedures, connectivity and deliveries.

Specifically talking about traceability here, it includes tracing of the vehicle details or we can say Vehicle Verification details and with that also tracing the Drivers details for driver verification. A technology partner like Signzy will help you to solve the problem related to the traceability of the vehicle as well as the driver. 

How Can Signzy Help?

Signzy has a one-stop solution when it comes to verification. It provides a simple plug and play API solution. With just the vehicle number you can get fitness details, Permit info, PUCC check, Insurance details and much more! The same goes to authenticate the driver’s license.

Signzy can provide a complete user journey and make your workflow simple while it is automated. A generic survey conducted by logistic partners and Signzy showed that automated workflow helped the logistic industry by 26% which earlier with the manual process was 11%.

About Signzy

Signzy is a market-leading platform redefining the speed, accuracy, and experience of how financial institutions are onboarding customers and businesses – using the digital medium. The company’s award-winning no-code GO platform delivers seamless, end-to-end, and multi-channel onboarding journeys while offering customizable workflows. In addition, it gives these players access to an aggregated marketplace of 240+ bespoke APIs that can be easily added to any workflow with simple widgets.

Signzy is enabling ten million+ end customer and business onboarding every month at a success rate of 99% while reducing the speed to market from 6 months to 3-4 weeks. It works with over 240+ FIs globally, including the 4 largest banks in India, a Top 3 acquiring Bank in the US, and has a robust global partnership with Mastercard and Microsoft. The company’s product team is based out of Bengaluru and has a strong presence in Mumbai, New York, and Dubai.

Visit www.signzy.com for more information about us.

You can reach out to our team at reachout@signzy.com

Written By:

Signzy

Written by an insightful Signzian intent on learning and sharing knowledge.

1 … 14 15 16 17 18 … 25