Financial services organizations are taking a strategic approach to identity verification to combat financial crime and stay one step ahead of fraudsters. Research was conducted in the UK and the U.S. to explore how organizations are approaching identity verification during the COVID-19 crisis. It found that the key drivers for financial services firms in taking such a proactive approach were a combination of: a desire to be best-in-class, build trust, enhance customer experience and drive competitive advantage. Increase in fraudulent activity as a result of the pandemic isn’t the sole driver for the change in how financial services companies approach identity verification, but it’s a situation that has endorsed a ‘front-foot’ approach.
Over the last three years, there has been a shift in the way that businesses approach identity verification. It found that there has been a move away from “reactive identity verification” – where identity verification is approached as a tactical and commoditized necessity to ensure compliance – to “positive identity verification”. This is where it is treated as a critical component of the customer journey and a strategic driver of business value. 72% of financial services organizations now include speed within their measurement of identity verification performance. By tracking the average speed, it takes to verify a customer at the initial account creation stage and further, along the customer journey, businesses are able to correlate this data with rates of abandonment, improving service, trust, consumer experience and profitability all while maintaining these highest standards of security.