When it comes to corporate collaborations, Know Your Business (KYB) is the ultimate source of securing business interests and staying compliant with Anti Money Laundering obligations. Before a business wishes to associate with another, it should make sure whether the client is trustworthy and authentic. The Know Your Business criteria, which falls under the hierarchy of AML standards, provides a reliable means of verifying the partner organization. 

A study conducted by Ponemon Institute states that, on average, more than $4 million is lost as a result of not investing in compliance practices. The scenario becomes more amusing since a substantial sum of $5.47 million is spent worldwide on compliance costs. KYB, as opposed to KYC, verifies businesses instead of customers by using certified identification parameters consisting of validation documents of the business owner and the company registration number (CRN), etc. 

Secure Business Relationships

Today, business associations depend on mutual understanding and interests. While your affiliate enterprise might be reliable, they may not realize the impacts of the ever-changing world of digital technology. Moreover, business partners have little or no control towards the vendors of their partner company. There is a constant need to verify trust between both entities to build secure and stable relationships. Know Your Business (KYB) standards are a reliable means of building trust and a secure channel of communication. 

KYB gives business verification methods a new sense of authenticity and eases the lengthy business verification operations, ultimately increasing the sales and nurturing business interests across both parties. Apart from trust and reliability, security measures are equally significant. Organizations should be mindful of KYB compliance when establishing B2B connections with other businesses. Over the years, regulatory technology has significantly changed the way business verification is performed. By using corporate information and other identity parameters such as the ultimate beneficiary chain of the partnering company, KYB is helping build secure business relationships. 

Compliance with AML Obligations

The escalation in financial crimes has made it necessary for law enforcement agencies to implement regulatory measures. One of the principal guidelines that were established during the Vietnam war in 1970, was the Bank Secrecy Act. The motivation behind this law was to counter tax evasion incidents rising out of unlawful drug dealing. Under this financial policy, banks are obliged to report dubious customer activity, for example, transactions more than $10,000. These regulations laid the first stone for AML and other relevant business verification standards to deter money laundering activities. As a result, organizations like the FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) and FATF(Financial Action TaskForce) came into being in the subsequent years. 

AML practices are a good bet when it comes to verifying companies and safeguarding the interests of businesses. As a result of non-compliance, poorly organized corporations suffer considerable disruption costs that often lead to sizable customer loss and compensation fees. The annual report on KYB compliance states that a sum of more than $5 million is paid to regulatory authorities, for not complying with Anti Money Laundering obligations. 

The 4AMLD, Anti Money Laundering Directive that came into effect in 2017, encourages financial institutions to perform KYB checks to reduce the potential risk of money laundering and terrorism funding. KYB compliance falls under the hierarchy of AML criteria that protects the business interests and also serves as a good means of safeguarding against potential crime. An online AML/KYB verification solution is a need of the hour to meet the needs of the current regulatory landscape.

Enhanced B2B Conversion Rate

Conversion rates are the most important B2B marketing benchmark for any commercial entity. For corporate businesses, a relation based on trust is of great importance for smooth communication. KYB is a quick and easy way to create positive impressions on your partner organizations to get started. By running a series of identity checks, the business is all set and ready to collaborate, as it creates a trustworthy relationship between both parties. It not only creates a better opportunity for promoting sales but also developing a good market reputation. Achieving healthy business relations and trust is directly proportional to increasing sales ultimately leading to a higher B2B conversion rate. According to statistics provided by Hubspot, the average conversion rate for page visitors lies between 20-25%, while the expectation of converting to a client should be nearly 1.5-3%.

Business relations play a significant role in establishing a good reputation for an enterprise in the market. It makes or breaks the economic prosperity for the particular company, and directly impacts the B2B conversion rate. Whether it’s a startup or established business, partner collaborations are the utmost priority. Know Your Business (KYB) provides a convenient way for affiliate businesses to verify their identity without reporting physically to sites and offices. By using business verification solutions, enterprises get to know their partners better, focus on specific concerns, and provide interest-oriented services that ultimately increase the B2B conversion rate.  

Reduced Operational Costs

In the increasingly digitized world of finance, businesses employ automated solutions to cut human resource expenses and to increase productivity. The fact that machines are self-driven systems and less prone to errors makes it a profitable opportunity, ultimately eradicating the prospect of human faults. When it comes to enterprises, a considerable rate of operational activities is as necessary as security. Unexpected and constant process delays could result in a compromised business relation or decreased sales that increase the risk of losing valuable capital contributions. 

For a seamless partnership experience and better engagement, there should be minimal delays in the identity verification of related businesses. Online KYB solutions play a vital role in achieving benchmark standards that help reduce operating costs. They come with the ease of remote identity verification, which reduces business onboarding expenses. A KYB verification process could include validating the Ultimate Beneficial Ownership (UBO), the Company Registration Number (CTA), or the identity of the sole owner. The guidelines of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on transparency and beneficial ownership lists, and pre-emptive verification policies for business verification.

To sum it all up, KYB is an effective means of creating secure business relations by enhancing the B2B conversion rate, reducing the total operational expenses, while complying with AML policies and procedures.

An increase in identity theft and tax fraud have become a major concern these days. Criminals are stealing other people’s identities to get access to the benefits that do not belong to them. Governments are under a lot of pressure to eliminate these crimes. In 2019, a resident of St. Louis was sentenced to jail in a case of stolen identity fraud and claimed around $12 million in Tax refund fraud. To fight this issue, we present you with a real-time solution: online ID verification. With the help of an online ID verification service, identity thieves can say goodbye to stealing someone else’s tax refund. Here in this blog, we will discuss what tax refund fraud is and how online ID verification services can help at the government level to fight these crimes. 

Tax Refund Fraud

Identity theft occurs when an individual steals someone else’s personal information like their name, address, social security number, etc. to practice illegal activity. Tax refund fraud takes place when an individual uses somebody’s personal information to file for a tax return in their stead. By filing for a tax return under somebody else’s identity, criminals can gain access to their tax refunds. A tax refund is reimbursement of the overpaid money to the government while paying taxes. 

The first-ever recorded case of identity theft in tax return fraud occurred in 1988. According to Los Angeles Times, a man named Donald Penrod was the person to be charged for electronically filing false tax forms and receiving illegal refunds. 

The identity thief uses legitimate taxpayer’s identity. They can steal or forge their SSN or ID document and claim their refund early in the season. They usually file for tax refund early in the season so they can steal the refund before the victim files for their tax return. The e-filing for tax returns has made it easier for identity thieves to file for fraudulent tax refunds. Even due to the online systems, people’s personal information has become easier to obtain.

One of the ways these identity thieves use to gain somebody’s personal information is through phishing. Fraudsters can contact the potential victim through email or telephone and pretend to be from a government organization like the IRS. The victim will trust them and reveal their personal information to the criminals. Another common method of stealing someone’s personal information is employees gaining information about other employees through their company databases. They can use this information to steal their tax refund or sell it to fraudsters. 

The problem that comes with Tax refund fraud 

Tax refund fraud is a growing issue that cheats the government out of millions every year. U.S. treasury inspector general, J. Russell George, states that identity theft related to tax refund fraud is a “growing epidemic”. This is a problem that is rapidly increasing each year. Identity theft fraud is rated number one scam by the IRS. 

According to the U.S. IRS, a 2.2 million fraudulent tax return scam occurred in 2011. Out of which, $6.6 billion worth of tax fraud included identity theft. The department of treasury investigators have estimated that the IRS has paid around $5 billion to identity thieves in fraudulent tax returns in 2011, and around $21 billion in 2016. This shows that the issue is increasing over time. 

The government is not only facing the loss of billions of dollars due to identity theft in tax return fraud, this also affects the economy of a country and its annual national budget. A lot of budget is allotted to fight against the tax return fraud. In the USA, an estimated $5.2 billion annually is spent on fraudulent tax returns. Then there is an additional cost of $31.8 billion spent in screening for millions of tax returns. This issue is extremely unavoidable.

Along with the government, citizens have to face a lot of problems as well. Their identity is being misused in criminal activities. They are cheated out of their deserving tax refund and on top of that, they have to go through the hassle of verifying their identity to government organizations. According to Bill Smith, a managing director of CBIZ MHM’s National Tax office, it takes the IRS around 6 months to investigate and then return the fund to the identity theft victim. 

US tax authority IRS Identity Verification Service

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is taking steps to eliminate tax return fraud activities. Although many believe that the IRS is not doing enough, the IRS has its own ID verification process.

In case the IRS suspects fraudulent activity or tax return is filed twice, they will mail a 5071C or 5747C figure to the address provided to alert the person for potential Identity theft. This letter then takes you to further steps to verify your identity. What you need to verify is, your identity is the tax return of the prior year and current year both, your SSN and DOB, account number, credit card, student loan, mortgages, loan info etc., a mobile number, copy of the letter sent by IRS. You will be asked questions only you know and you will be able to answer. If your identity is proven then you will be provided your refund, if not then further investigation will be held to catch the identity thief. 

It takes the IRS a long time to complete the verification process. The growing number of identity theft has made it hard for the IRS to catch and investigate all the criminals. This is why a more efficient and quick solution to this colossal problem is required.

Help of Online ID Verification  

Online ID verification solutions could help government organizations fight tax fraud. 

If in today’s world criminals are using technology to commit a crime, then the best way to fight these crimes would be to fight fire with fire. That means, use the technology to halt fraudulent and criminal activities. Artificially intelligent softwares working with human intelligence can be a great asset to the government. Introducing these ID verification services online can help the government to verify the identity of the fraudsters within seconds and the innocent citizens would not have to pay the price of losing their funds and time. 

With the help of online identity verification, the government can gain the confidence and trust of the citizen by quickly verifying and catching identity thieves. It can help the government catch many fraudsters and lower the crime rate. This can save the government a lot of money and time on screening identities. 

How the ID Verification Solution Works

An online ID verification solution ensures that customer businesses are not involved in identity theft. It is to ensure that the individuals are who they claim to be. There are a number of ways identity can be screened. Following is the list of few explained:

• Face Verification

With face verification, the citizen will have to upload their selfie or through 3D liveness detection can show their face on a webcam. The face of the person will be matched with the picture provided on their ID document. This way the identity of the person will be verified before they file a tax refund. 

• Document Verification 

Document authenticity can also be checked through this online Id verification service. A citizen would be required to send a picture of themselves along with their ID document to ensure that they are not using a stolen Identity card or SSN. The face of the person will be matched with the picture of their ID document. The authenticity of the document will also be checked to see that if the document is fake or not. 

• Address Verification

In this, the identity of the person is verified through their address information. A person is required to submit their government-issued documents along with a secondary document that has their address on it. With the help of the address verification, the government can also ensure that the important mail contains sensitive information, payments, legal documents to reach on the right address. 

On-Premises Identity verification solution

On-Premises Identity verification solution can give all the access of the government only so the personal information of the citizens cannot be compromised. The service provider will not have access to the data of the citizens. They will only provide the software to the government and the database will be secured by  the government. 

To Sum it Up

This is an easy authentication solution that can verify the end-user within seconds. With the help of AI solutions, the government can verify the identity of all the citizens before giving them access to any kind of tax refund. Anybody’s identity can be verified no matter where they are in the world. With just these easy steps, not only the government but citizens can be saved from unnecessary stress, wastage of time, and money. 

Halloween is just around the corner and so do the scammers ready to exploit the opportunity. Which possible tactics can fraudsters use? Which businesses are on target? 

This blog covers major Halloween scams and how industries can integrate identity verification services to secure their business.

October is a spooky month. The ghosts, zombies, and werewolves are scary but real-world monsters are even scarier. Scammers never take a break and during Halloween and holiday season they get even more active. The monsters are lurking in the shadows to scam individuals and businesses through spooky tricks on social media, eCommerce platforms and other digital channels. Identity verification solution is the need of the hour for businesses to combat these frauds.

6 scams to watch out this Halloween

The shipping scam

Every year around October, the internet is full of Halloween-themed stores and promotions. These online stores showcase quite attractive costumes, decorations, accessories and offer impressive promotions and discounts. But this is just a trap, not all the sites are authentic and most of the time the products uploaded on these stores don’t even exist. The retailers owning such sites will never deliver the ordered items.

Such stores, even if they exist, have no intention of shipping goods. Sometimes, the order is cancelled from the retailer’s side without any notification, or the delivery date is postponed for weeks until after Halloween. Moreover, some incidents have been reported in the past where the buyers received empty packages. All these tactics are of shipping scams. Though shipping scams exist all around the year, during Halloween, Black Friday and Christmas the number increases.

Shoppers need to be careful while purchasing items online. The best practice is to look out for the store’s phone number, physical address and their return policies just in case things go out of hands. Most importantly, be careful while giving your credit card information to online shop. Sometimes, these sites are just there to scrap out users’ credit card information. 

The information ghosts

Ghosts don’t only exist in movies and fairytales, the real-world information ghosts aka identity thieves are enough to give you sleepless nights. With events like Halloween approaching near, scammers gear up their phishing game to trick people into giving their personally identifiable information. The malicious activities of these bad guys are not limited to social media only, but every other digital platform is on the hit list of con-artists. 

Through various social engineering and phishing techniques, fraudsters fool people into providing their personal and financial information. With Halloween around the corner, one most commonly used tactic is discount coupons and gift vouchers. In order to avail these coupons, individuals are often lured into providing their information, which most of the people happily give in. This stolen information, later on, leads to account takeover frauds, card-not-present frauds and identity theft.

Fraudulent purchases and chargebacks

Among Halloween scams, fraudulent purchases top the list. Scammers use stolen credentials and credit card information to purchase products which result in fraudulent and false chargebacks claims. In such scenarios, the eCommerce site owners have to suffer the major loss. According to the chargeback report, against every one dollar fraud, merchant losses $2.40. Every year this cost increases.

Sometimes, even real customers claim chargebacks after receiving the product to enjoy free products. No matter whatever the case is, the business has to bear the loss. 

A ghost rising from the grave

Have you ever seen a ghost? You might not but banks and financial institutions do. Wondering how? Well in the form of deceased identity theft. According to the report, around 2.5 million deceased individuals become a victim of identity theft every year. Moreover, some studies claim that around 800,000 out of these victims are specifically targeted because they passed away. 

In most of the cases, the families of the deceased person neglect the need to check up on their credit report and dispose of their social media and bank accounts. Thanks to the publicly available information that it is easy for identity thieves to accomplish their goals. Due to this type of fraud, banks, insurance institutions and credit organisations have to suffer a lot. 

The fraudster may take out a loan using the identity of a deceased person and by the time banks figure out the fraud, they have already moved to their next target leaving no trace behind.

The bogus purchase scam

Bogus schemes have been rising for a few years now. In this type of bogus purchase scam, the fraudsters convince individuals that they have bought something which they did not buy. All this is done to get personal information from the customers. Once the customers are convinced to share their data and scammers get hold of information, they can do anything with it. From emptying your bank account and taking out loans in your name to committing heinous crimes using your identity, fraudsters can do anything.

Most of the time, these fraudsters try to imitate the employees of some well-known site so that individuals may find it authentic.

It all goes down to online businesses

With all these scams around the corner, no doubt individuals are badly affected. However, online businesses are the ones that are under continuous threat of digital frauds. Halloween is approaching near and eCommerce platforms and banking institutions are going to face a potential wave of identity frauds. Fraudsters are not going to miss any chance to fulfil their malicious intents. They will target individuals through Halloween-themed scams and businesses will have to suffer the major loss in the form of chargebacks and fraudulent loans and insurances.

Online identity verification to combat Halloween frauds

Frauds always occur because of the negligence and inefficient measures of the organisation in place. Identity theft, card-not-present fraud, chargeback frauds are the result of inefficient identity checks. The traditional verification and authentication checks are not enough to combat identity frauds since stealing credentials are very easy through various phishing and social engineering tactics. Businesses need an advanced solution to identify the fraudsters in the first place and authenticate users before allowing access to services and products.

In the case of chargebacks, the major issue is that e-commerce sites don’t authenticate users at the time of checkout, hence resulting in fraudulent purchases and chargebacks. With a biometric verification solution in place, online retailers can combat identity thieves, since only authorised customers can access the account and make purchases. Moreover, with biometric authentication at the time of checkout, retailers can ensure only real customer is making a purchase. With proof of verification, false and fraudulent chargeback claims can be deterred.

Apart from e-commerce sites, banks, financial institutions, insurance companies and other digital businesses can eliminate the risk of identity fraud including false loans, account takeover fraud, insurance frauds, identity theft, etc. in real-time by incorporating online identity verification solutions.

Learn how you can secure your business from identity frauds with Shufti Pro’s Global identity verification solution.

Technological advancements came with several betterments for humans. Where every industry is benefitting from the advanced technology, the businesses are also making tremendous progress. With the introduction of freelance jobs, people can now work from home and earn a handsome income through contractual jobs. 

Freelance workers have a variety of jobs every day, and the benefits of working in this industry are more than what one could expect. In the United Kingdom, almost two million people are working in the gig economy, and the majority of them pursue it as their main source of income. The rest of them have it as a secondary job. However, freelance platforms are facing some serious issues while catering to the needs of employers and employees. Some of these major problems include verification of employers and employees and forged documents for identity verification. Freelancing platforms can employ Know Your Customer (KYC) verification to avoid all these issues.

Are you wondering about the connection between KYC and the gig economy? Here’s what you should know.    

What is KYC?

KYC means Know Your Customer, which is an efficient process of verifying your customers. Financial institutions and other businesses follow KYC to identify whether the applicants are authentic or not. Providing forged documents, edited images, and entering wrong information during verification are very common nowadays. Getting know your customer verification service can help you keep these issues away. 

How Does KYC Verification Work?

KYC is a regulatory obligation for all financial and non-financial firms. What is the process of this verification method? The freelance platforms are obliged to develop a verification process and fulfil the KYC requirements to identify all their customers. The fundamental process includes the following steps:

1. Collection of information from customers 
2. Collection of identity proof
3. Verification of the provided information

Read more about the KYC process: KYC Verification Process – 3 Steps to KYC compliance. 

What Is the Gig Economy?

If you are a freelance employer or employee, or someone willing to enter the freelance industry, you must have heard the term ‘gig economy.’ What is the gig economy? As alien as it sounds, it simply refers to the freelance community. The number of freelance workers and recruiters is continually rising, which is significantly contributing to a large proportion of the economy. These individuals and recruiters are now characterized in the gig economy. 

The UK gig economy statistics show that the freelance labour market is booming, the size has doubled in the last three years, and currently, there are 4.7 million freelance workers. 

Why is KYC Demand in the Gig Economy Rising?

The increasing number of cybercrimes is making it a problem for companies to function effectively. Hence, the demand for a robust verification is essential. Here’s why KYC demand is rising in the gig economy.

Getting the Right Customers Onboard 

None of the industries is free from scams, and the situation is no different for the gig or freelance workers. With rising scammers, it is getting difficult for the freelancing websites to get the right individuals on board. Many fraudsters use forged documents for verification, which results in identity theft, financial crimes, and many other issues. 

Know Your Customer verification makes it more convenient for these sites to get the right people on track. Otherwise, the freelance recruiter may cause problems, or the employee can be troublesome too. 

Avoiding Scams for Freelancers 

According to a survey, freelance workers can represent 80 percent of the workforce by 2030. Ensuring their safety is essential for freelancing platforms; therefore, KYC becomes vital. The number of scammers as freelance recruiters is rising, and usually, they are either unverified (which is visible on their profile). The budget of the jobs is exceptionally high, which compels most of the workers to bid and start working. However, they end up getting scammed with no money in their bank accounts. Onboarding thoroughly verified recruiters reduces the chances of scams targeted towards freelancers. Know Your Customer for freelancing platforms ensures that every hiring individual is authentic. 

Combating Employer Scams 

The majority of employers file complaints against freelancers regarding offsite payment of projects or prepayments. Freelancers also offer proprietary work, which is ethically unacceptable. How can a recruiter and a freelancing website stay safe from fraudsters like these? For the platforms, they must verify every worker through KYC. As for the recruiters, they should only hire workers with verified accounts and ask for legitimate samples of their work rather than copyrighted ones. 

Ensuring Financial Security 

Financial information is strictly confidential, and the majority of individuals avoid providing sensitive information. Sometimes workers and hiring authorities start with a remarkable profile, however, they can go off-track in no time. Moreover, it is easier for hiring bodies to post fake jobs to attract competent workers. Once the job is done, recruiters vanish into thin air leaving freelancers without any money. KYC verification can identify these fraudsters in the beginning and protect their platform as well as freelancers from the scams. 

Preventing Money Laundering Cases

Money laundering cases are on the edge of breaking records. The gig economy and all its service providers are not safe from money laundering threats as well. The free trade is now a new means of laundering money for traffickers. Recruiters, after successful completion of the job, ask freelancers to transfer some funds from one bank account to another. The freelancer becomes a third party making money laundering easier unintentionally. These individuals are known as money mules. 

Learn more about money mules: Jobs in the frame of money laundering.

Know Your Customer verification ensures that everybody on the platform is legitimate. Furthermore, it will help you monitor transactions effectively. This way, you can reduce money laundering cases from your platform in no time.  

Making Freelancing Platforms Credible 

Many employers and employees have trouble trusting an online platform for job purposes. Clients prefer sources that have robust verification processes, and adding KYC to your business means you are attracting more customers. It encourages recruiters to post more jobs, whereas employees are motivated to work. Both parties experience financial security, which generates positive word-of-mouth for the entire platform. In short, for everybody it’s a win-win scenario.

Improving Customer Experience 

All companies focus on improving client experience and so do the freelancing platforms. The traditional process of client verification is time-consuming and requires effort, and eliminating human error is crucial for better verification. Digitally verifying identities is a better way of onboarding customers. It only takes a few seconds to verify and the chances of errors diminish, making the entire process effortless yet credible. If freelancing platforms add digital identity verification systems, they can enhance customer experience through a time-effective and instant process. 

Summing It Up

KYC compliance is an effective method of securing all information and profiles on a freelancing platform. The emerging gig economy needs extra security to gain customer trust and loyalty. The era of digitization is not free from scams, and we at Shufti Pro are here to assist your business.  

Shufti Pro is PCI-DSS and GDPR compliant solution for your platform. We provide a hybrid service that combines Human and Artificial Intelligence for achieving 98.67 per cent accuracy. Furthermore, liveness and face detection enables you to know every client to the fullest. With accurate results in 30-60 seconds.

Have some questions? Get in touch with us.

If we talk about financial institutions including banks and their processes, one can freely argue that the financial sector is mandated to have certain processes set up in place specifically for impeding financial crimes including money laundering and terrorist financing otherwise collectively known as ML/TF. A currency business in Costa Rica was closed down across 17 countries because the company laundered an estimated $6 billion from various criminal activities. If you are familiar with KYC or Know your Customer, you would know that it is a key practice that can not be underestimated by the financial industry, as it ensures that their customers are not encompassing money-related crimes. 

KYC processes require the financial sector to maintain an in-depth understanding of its customers and any associated money laundering risks. As client information changes with the times, many financial organizations are still resting on outdated customer data. This is where KYC remediation comes in, it prevents the financial sector from drawing into money crimes, by regularly maintaining and updating client’s information. 

What is KYC Remediation?

Remediation means getting rid of inaccurate client data that financial institutions seem to have ignored for years, after which regulatory authorities increasingly became more concerned about rapidly evolving financial crimes. Swiftly, KYC became the topmost concern for financial institutions. Since then several regulations have been initiated including KYC remediation which needed organizations to remediate customer KYC profiles to comprehensively evaluate risks. 

Therefore, KYC remediation is the ongoing process of updating customer documents and information gathered through KYC to meet regulatory compliance. Non-compliance with regulations may pose risks of ML/TF which can lead to reputational damages.  It allows businesses to conduct a risk assessment and optimize customer KYC files that emphasize the risk elements linked to every client.  A thorough remediation procedure can drastically minimize the business risk along with giving companies a chance to understand their customers better. 

The KYC Remediation Process

The KYC remediation process varies from company to company and is complex but the most used remediation strategy is screening, verifying, and identifying customers. The regulatory landscape constantly changes, so does the customer profiles. Successful compliance depends on updated KYC data, making the whole remediation process time-consuming and costly. 

However, ‘know your customer’ remediation process can be achieved by opting for automated compliance products, and can also be carried out manually. But the main objective is to distinguish between the customer risk profiles from non-risk profiles, meaning which clients are more apparently inclined towards financial crimes from those who are not. So it’s crucial for companies to have sufficient client information purposely to prevent money launderers from entering into the legitimate financial system. Failure to comply with remediation can put your company, reputation, and revenues in jeopardy. 

Therefore, it is mandatory for the financial sector to follow the policies put in place by FATF (Financial action task force) to deter financial crimes. Whereas, KYC remediation facilitates the financial sector to execute the obligation. The process formally includes the following steps:

• The first stage is based on the exhaustive collection of customer information, after which companies can initiate their remediation process.
• Organization of all the collected data to identify potential gaps, and conflicting information.
• After the remediation process is finished, financial institutions take a risk-based approach to smoothly recognize the level of risk each customer presents on money laundering, corruption, tax evasion, and terrorist financing. 
• After extensive screening, Financial institutions report the potential suspects to relevant authorities. 

KYC remediation is considered a fundamental step for the financial industry to meet AML compliance. Because it enables companies to become completely known about their customers and the level of protection they need from financial criminals. 

The importance of KYC Remediation

The importance depends on how swift the process is. Manually gathering customer information, compiling profiles, and running audits take too much time and incur higher costs. According to a survey in 2016, financial institutions spent an estimated $60 million on KYC processes annually followed by $78 million in the USA, and $80 million in Germany, Hong Kong, and the UK. Additionally, the cost of KYC remediation is only expected to grow remarkably over the next four years. The reason why financial institutions are adopting a risk-based approach to remediate instead of optimising KYC files, alone.

The whole remediation process not only ensures that the KYC files are optimised but also mitigate any financial risks presented by customers. Thus, it is as important as the KYC for customer due diligence. It allows you to perform a risk assessment on an on-going basis instead of one time only. Also, the entire process makes you aware of who your customers are and what they are trying to achieve (say for example in the form of illegal transactions) after entering your financial system. Since 2009, banks have been charged with $30 billion in fines globally because they failed to report or identify the financial crime happening right within their systems. Not to mention the reputational costs for being involved in money laundering scandals.  The reason why on-going KYC remediation and AML regulations are excessively highlighted. 

Challenges in KYC files Remediation

The process of remediating files only are no longer needed because it is surrounding with ample challenges as given below:

Outdated processes: Company KYC remediation processes, technologies, and solutions have evolved over the years, but still, many businesses continue to use old and broken ways of doing things since recently. Risk assessment and due diligence policies were considered adequate when they were not. Which has led to many organizations carrying out more than one remediation project in order to fill the gaps. Subsequently, untrained staff led to the same outdated process with the same results. 

Weak onboarding procedures: Onboarding is an integral part of the KYC remediation process. During the early stages of onboarding, financial institutions are supposed to collect client data, and poor customer onboarding makes it complicated to gather every single piece of information about a customer which is very daunting. This is directly related to outdated and inadequate processes of gathering, maintaining, and updating data making the entire onboarding process inefficient and prone to errors.

Poor customer offboarding: A lot of financial institutions have not yet opted for a formal offboarding process, so the customers who were onboarded years ago are still sitting in their records, even without the existence of any business relationship whatsoever. Therefore, it makes cleaning up the old data unsettling because sometimes the data is sitting not on one but multiple systems leading to duplication, error, and disparity.

Meeting regulations: Most financial institutions are using AML software to combat money laundering activities within their system. But companies lack clarity on whether to inspect every piece of client data available under the remediation program or just associated risk areas. This ambiguity makes it difficult for companies to implement the practices for KYC remediation. Firms start to remediate everything due to the lack of direction and at times miss out on the high-risk profiles while focusing on low-risk issues.

But recently regulators have stressed more upon the risk-based approach. It involves a risk assessment of high-risk profiles based on which firms decide which files to prioritize and are remediated first, making the entire process easier. In addition to this, continuously changing compliance standards makes it very challenging for financial firms to implement changes in their processes. 

Key takeaways

Seamless customer onboarding is a top preference for businesses, however, having a weak onboarding process and customer due diligence can only make the process difficult and expensive. Global financial businesses can opt for digital identity verification solutions for KYC to meet AML compliance. Digital KYC makes customer onboarding smoother and error-free. Also as client risk status is regularly changing, so the companies are obliged to have remediation processes in place to obstruct financial crimes right away. 

Due to the rising cases of money laundering, regulatory authorities are putting more pressure on financial institutions to curb the crime. The AML regulations have been amended many times since the pandemic and will continue to do so, as financial criminals find more sophisticated ways to misuse services. Investing in digital identity verification solutions is the need of the time for effective KYC remediation and compliance. 

Shufti Pro is a leading identity verification solution for KYC and on-going AML. Regular AML monitoring of clients through Shufti Pro develops comprehensive high-risk profiles for fraud prevention. With Shufti Pro’s ongoing AML compliance services, companies can establish consistency with authentic background data checks while maintaining high-risk profiles at the same time. It performs global AML screening for accurate risk profiling and updated risk status based on high-security standards followed by additional identity assurance.

Digitization is reshaping the future of healthcare. With the healthcare industry, having more resources at their disposal, medical treatment is becoming more accessible to patients irrespective of the location. But this exponential growth has also given way to technical crises and predicaments one of which is Medical Identity Theft. Medical Identity Theft is becoming increasingly popular in this age of digitization. Identity thieves are targeting medical records without any hesitation and the number of cases continues to grow each day, affecting the healthcare sector on a much larger scale. Problems as such insist on innovative digital identity verification solutions. Speaking of which, in this day and age, many online systems are vulnerable to and defenseless against massive data breaches.

Let’s look into what Medical Identity Theft actually looks like, the damages it can cause if go unnoticed, and how to prevent it.

These breaches are not limited to the corporate world but the health care sector has been greatly impacted as well.

Medical identity theft has always been there, which is pretty evident from the numbers given above, and can have more detrimental effects than the usual identity theft. Here fraudsters use the healthcare information of patients to get expensive medical services, and the aftermath is in the form of millions that can take eons to fix and settle.

What is Medical Identity Theft?

Medical identity theft is considered a healthcare fraud that transpires when someone steals medical and personal information of patients to get medical treatments or prescriptions. Not only this, but they can also use that information to make false claims to insurance providers to obtain medical reimbursements or fictitious medical services from government healthcare programs.

Medical identity theft may not be in the spotlight but it is a growing threat that can have some serious consequences on hospitals, insurance firms, victims and not to mention the considerable financial losses. All it needs for the crime to take place is the patient’s personally identifiable information and/ or personal health information such as your social security number, mailing address, name, medical record, prescription history, and other pieces of information that identify you as a specific individual.

What are some of the types of Medical Identity Theft?

Healthcare is expensive around the globe especially in the US  but it affects everyone equally as it strains the budget of individuals and taxpayers all the same. Healthcare costs continue to rise and account for almost 90% of the spending in the US alone. However, everyone has access to health insurance to cover the costs. 

Undergoing free medical care: Keeping in view the expensive medical services, now just imagine the damage online medical frauds can do to the community. Using a patient’s health insurance number, fraudsters can get free treatment from practitioners at a number of hospitals either undergoing major surgery or getting a prescription they don’t even qualify for or just making claims for the medical care they might not even need just for the sake of receiving reimbursements by fabricating medical records.

Healthcare industry and black market: Fraudsters can pose as patients and use insurance to get expensive medical equipment, only to sell the equipment on the black market. On the other hand, PHI is worth a great deal of money on the black market because it can be used to procure pharmaceuticals, pull off insurance frauds, or obtain government healthcare programs like Medicaid and Medicare.

No access to health coverage: Patients can lose their health coverage due to these imposters. They can exhaust their health benefits (which were initially in place for the patients). As a result, it can put the patient’s health in jeopardy when they actually need medical attention in case of emergencies. 

The world’s privacy forum published the first-ever major report about the crime of medical identity theft in 2006 and its implications on patients as well as hospitals.

Insider threats: Surprisingly sometimes the perpetrators work within the healthcare sector. They are well aware of the insurance billing system enough to charge your bill for inflated claims to treatments you never received. 

Prescription drugs: Here thieves can use patient’s health insurance to obtain restricted or otherwise prescribed medications in order to feed into their addiction or for treatment. According to a Consumer Reports article, in 2006 a woman was allegedly arrested for buying 1,700 opioid painkiller pills on prescription. Someone stole her purse and her wallet according to the story. The charges were dissolved after she filed a report, still, it took her almost 7 years to clear her name.

Government Healthcare: False use of identity to get government health benefits which they otherwise don’t deserve. 

How Medical Identity theft can affect patients and businesses? 

The repercussions of Medical identity theft to consumers and businesses are acute. 

An estimated 1.4M Americans were victims of medical identity theft in 2009 which is the only 5% of reported incidents, according to experian. 

Whether its plain identity theft or medical identity theft specifically, it takes time to resolve. Oftentimes it can not be identified which makes it extremely dangerous. Other times victims don’t even realize that they were the victims of such a menace until after it’s too late. Which in return can leave negative footprints on not only patients but the healthcare industry as a whole. 

Negative Outcomes on Patients: 40% of customers say that they have no idea that their information is compromised until after they receive a medical bill for services they didn’t get or when they hear from a debt collector about a medical debt they were unaware of. Sometimes the victims have to pay for the damages out of their own pockets to make up for the losses. 

Negative Outcomes on Businesses: The impact of such a breach is as detrimental to businesses as it is to consumers. According to Ponemon Institute research, the average cost for a company to address a medical data breach is $211 per record. On top of that, the companies that fail to comply with the HITECH Act may have to pay $1.5M in fines.

Damages go beyond just financial losses and fines. It also ruins the industry relationships including trust and is damaging to the overall business reputation.

How Identity Verification can help prevent Medical Identity Theft?  

Medical identity theft is preventable. Therefore, some studies and practical implementations have shown how identity verification can solve this problem. To prevent healthcare data breaches and medical identity thefts, hospitals need to have adequate and digitized identity verification solutions in place that provide a comprehensive patient screening process, known as ‘Know your Patient or KYP’. This will reduce the risk of medical identity theft that is negatively impacting the revenue cycle of hospitals, patient privacy, customer experience and onboarding.

To prevent medical identity thefts by authenticating patients, healthcare institutions can use a biometric identification system. Opting for an online identity verification system during the early stages of patient onboarding has some really convincing advantages.

Healthcare fraud prevention: Online identity verification can seamlessly help with medical identity theft and healthcare fraud prevention as it uses ID document verification to identify and verify a patient. More so, a complete ID verification solution not only relies on document verification using OCR to fight insurance frauds but a mixture of facial recognition features through liveness detection, and consent verification to ensure that the patient is who he says he is and not impersonated by mere imposters. Moreover, as telehealth continues to develop gradually, ID verification and biometric authentication can effortlessly verify the identity of patients while providing services online. These processes are not only crucial for quick and safe patient onboarding but also improves consumer satisfaction. 

Healthcare Compliance: Fortunately, there are many healthcare regulations that basically lay the standards of data protection such as KYP/ AML compliance. HITECH and HIPAA compliance sets forth the policies and procedures to address online security in the healthcare industry. Failure to comply with these regulations may incur penalties on the industry. Patient screening through AML regulations can help healthcare institutions to run background checks on new patients against AML watchlists to ensure that the patients do qualify for the said treatment. Which can save them from future medical identity theft incidents and data breaches.

Swift user onboarding: In most cases, online identity verification is performed during patient onboarding, meaning when they create their online accounts on the hospital portal. This instantly captures its data in real-time for online verification in seconds to be able to efficiently deliver patient care.  Verification of government-issued ID document, or health insurance cards upon onboarding facilitates smoother processing of payments and/or insurance claims. 

Protecting a patient’s data: Online identity verification effectively protects the patient’s medical records by eliminating the risk of medical identity theft. Using strict security protocols such as anti-virus and malware alone isn’t enough. The healthcare sector needs a proper ID verification solution in place to ensure that the patient isn’t posing as an imposter. Hospitals can achieve this through enhanced KYC. 

Conclusion

Patient identification solutions can protect the healthcare sector from online frauds, possible data breaches, medical identity theft, and non-compliance penalties. Verifying age can provide prescription-only pharmaceuticals, document verification can prevent false insurance claims, facial recognition can catch identity theft and biometric authentication can help prevent unauthorized medical account access. The innovations in ID verification solutions are outstanding. This paradigm shift from manual paper-based solutions to automated online verification solutions continues to solve many problems for businesses around the globe. 

In today’s ever-changing corporate landscape, businesses are always looking for ways to make their operations as functional as possible for acquiring profits and success altogether. Outsourcing third party vendors to carry out certain tasks is a growing trend across the globe. Apart from saving time, it saves costs too. But as businesses grow, the need for employing third-party operations arises and so do the risks. Therefore, such risks are making companies more vigilant in analyzing and detecting associated threats to safeguard their businesses, clients, consumers, and company sensitive data at all costs. This is where the enhanced vendor due diligence process comes in.

Vendor due diligence is usually conducted on the request of the buyers to inquire about the financial prospects, stability, and processes of the company they are attempting to buy. A comprehensive report is developed by the third-party networks and presented to potential buyers and/or investors. But in some cases, it takes place on the request of the seller to address any concerns as well.

Thorough screening helps to eliminate vendor fraud surrounding vendors before the acquisition. Moreover, the vendor due diligence process is considered a crucial part of AML as it indicates that the company you are entering in business with is ethical and compliance risk-free. This helps companies to avoid any financial and reputational harm in the future. So it is beneficial for buyers and sellers both to perform a thorough vendor due diligence process before selling and buying so that financial issues can be rectified before the business is concluded.

Shufti Pro’s KYB process

Business Search: This gives the background data of the target company for vendor due diligence such as a registered address, current status, company type, UBOs, previous name, trademark registration.

Business Filings: Potential buyers can find all the financial information. They can access financial statements, sources, and links to downloadable reports and shareholder lists.

Business Statement: The business environment is always evolving so in order to stay ahead of the curve, you can access the updated follow-up information through business statements.

Business Networks: It provides a detailed insight into corporate structures including parent entities and associated subsidiaries.

With social distancing becoming the necessity during the pandemic, more and more companies began to onboard customers and perform customer verifications through digital means, and it is believed that this trend will continue long after. Now as the world recovers from COVID-19 blow, this acceleration towards digital adoption is expected to further increase in the banking and financial sector, with the introduction of video-based KYC method.

The financial sector businesses are bringing exciting new digital services for their customers. With the introduction of these services, the need for online identity verification increases as well, that can be well met by integrating the systems with an advanced verification system such as video-KYC.

In Video KYC, a KYC expert or representative of the financial institution authenticates the identity of a customer. He/She also verifies the documents presented during the live video call. During the video call, a customer is required to display their government-issued identity documents to the company’s official after verifying his credentials. Significant financial and other mobile wallet companies have started setting up infrastructure for this new verification system. 

Who performs video KYC with customers?

In video KYC, the customers are connected with a trained KYC expert, who conducts the interview and asks them to verify their identity by showing a government-issued identity document as proof of identity. During the process, the KYC expert asks questions from the customer and observes their behaviour and body language as well to ensure that the person in front of the camera is not an impersonator.

Read more: Video KYC – Understanding the ‘what’ and ‘how’ [A short guide]

General guidelines for Video KYC

Companies have to follow certain guidelines while employing a video identification process for customer verification.

• Record video and capture live photo of the customer
• Capture image of the identity document
• Match the photo of the customer with the one on the identity document
• Match details on ID file with that on the form
• Use the latest AI and Face recognition technology
• Recorded video to be saved securely with date/time stamp
• Identification and liveness of customer beyond doubt

Advantages of implementing video KYC system

Using video-based customer identification method has various benefits for organizations;

Effective fraud prevention

Effective fraud prevention is one of the most significant benefits that video KYC offers. With live video interviews and the use of AI and facial recognition, companies can reduce identity fraud cases and secure their operations significantly. 

Ian Kane, COO and founder of TERNIO, believes that Video KYC offers more security as compared to other verification methods. “Video would be more secure than photo-based ID checks. It’s much harder to fake a video, especially if the user has to meet certain criteria like holding a piece of paper or saying a certain phrase. I think ultimately, it gives all compliance teams more confidence that a user is who he/she says they are”.

Prevent money laundering

Onboarding legitimate customers will also protect your business from money launderers. With video KYC interviews, thorough background checks can be performed on your clients to ensure they are not present in any sanctions or watch lists. So video KYC can prove to be a handy tool in the fight against money laundering as described by Victor Fredung, CEO of Shufti Pro.

Victor believes that, “Video KYC is a robust safety measure, an additional layer of security to safeguard onboarding processes and to curb financial crimes, especially money laundering. A blend of video KYC and other AI-based verification solutions can prove to be an unbreakable risk cover for banks and businesses.”

Reduced paperwork

With the complete verification process being performed digitally, the companies can say goodbye to the hefty paperwork, and long manual processes.

Eliminate human errors

With the help of advanced technologies like artificial intelligence and liveness detection, the possibility of human errors is substantially reduced.  

Drop-off reduction

With a quick and smooth customer verification process, video KYC helps in reducing the drop-offs, which they normally have to face with the traditional authentication methods.

Enhanced customer experience

KYC through video call eliminates the major struggle of the verification process including the drop-offs that occur at multiple steps of the physical verification process. Slow onboarding process can frustrate new customers, who then abandon the onboarding process, as evident from the stats below.

These statistics show why quick online verification tools are the need of the hour. With video KYC solution customers can easily verify their identity by displaying the identity documents to the camera and answering a few relevant questions asked by the KYC expert taking the interview. After the collection of the user-provided information, he or she will be verified.

Faster identity verification

Customer authentications through video KYC method replace the physical visits of the customers for verification. Hence by remote verifications, the process gets completed faster without any delays.

Video KYC solution by Shufti Pro

Shufti Pro’s video KYC solution enables a swift and secure identity verification process for your customers. Both banking and financial institutions can acquire video KYC service from Shufti Pro and onboard customers without any delay. Shufti’s video KYC solution utilizes facial recognition and liveness detection for effective customer face authentication and to ensure the live presence of customers during the interview.

Furthermore, Shufti Pro’s document verification solution helps to authenticate the validity of the identity card in real-time, and the entire verification process is completed in minutes. 

Three solutions for you to choose from

Shufti Pro offers three video KYC plans to banks and financial institutions from which they can select the plan best suited for their business needs. Companies can choose;

• The nationality of their customers and the language for verification method for customized experience.
• Their own KYC experts for the verification process. 
• Automated AI-based option to perform verification without hiring KYC experts

Conclusion

Performing identity verification while onboarding customers is a requirement every bank and financial institution has to fulfil. With the development of new digital services that are being offered to the customers, these institutions must employ digitally advanced verification solutions to overcome the growing risk of frauds and money laundering. Here Shufti Pro can help them keep their operations secure and their customers happy. Our video KYC solution offers enhanced security with a quick verification system compatible with their onboarding operations.

KYC is an integral part of the customer onboarding process and it has evolved with time. Do you know video identification is now the latest way to carry out the KYC process in real-time?

This blog post covers the basic information about Video KYC, including the process and use cases. Here’s the summary of the blog:

The year 2020 has brought some major shifts in the business world, digitisation being the significant change. With COVID-19 situation in question, organisations have actively shifted their operations online to capture the consumer market and reap the benefits. Among all the industries, banks and financial institutions are the ones to take a major leap in their customer onboarding process.

While consumers go digital, enterprises face a major challenge to strike the balance between security and customer experience. Which method to adopt to successfully comply with KYC/ AML regulations and provide the user with enhanced experience? Video KYC is one such solution that not only offers real-time customer onboarding but also caters to changing regulatory landscape.

How Video KYC is different from traditional KYC?

Know your customer (KYC) is generally defined as the process to confirm the identity of the customer and identify any possible associated risk with the customer. To comply with KYC/AML regulations is obligatory for banks, financial institutions and every other business dealing with money. Traditionally organisations have manual customer identification program (CIP) in place to verify customer identity at the time of onboarding. This process could take up to weeks, enforcing customers to abandon the process in the middle.

Video customer identification process is the digital version of the traditional KYC process, just more secure, quick and cost-effective. Video KYC eliminates the paperwork streamlining the whole verification process with real-time results. Customers don’t need to physically visit the company and submit their identity documents to open their accounts. From registration to onboarding everything is done remotely.

The growing need for video verification

Video identification is the trending phenomenon nowadays and calling it the force behind the changing identity verification industry won’t be an overstatement. Apart from making the verification process time and cost-effective, the growing identity frauds are driving the need for a secure verification process in the form of video verification. Security is one of the key concerns of industries in this digital era and Video KYC solution is quite efficient to combat fraudster’s sophisticated tricks.

Video-based customer identification serves as a shield against various identity frauds that include:

Spoof attacks

With the advent in technology, fraudsters are becoming more sophisticated in carrying out frauds to fulfil their malicious intents in the form of spoof attacks. Using AI tools and technologies, imposters are tricking and surpassing verification systems with fake or stolen identities. This type of document and facial spoof attacks are hard to detect and is not recommended to rely on the system’s decision only. Video KYC incorporates both human and artificial intelligence to detect spoof attacks in real-time.

Synthetic identities

Synthetic identity theft is one of the most difficult fraud to detect because of its nature. What fraudsters do is they combine real pieces of information, for instance, social security numbers (SSN), with fake information to create real-looking identity. Such identity is hard to detect at initial stages of fraud but with video verification services synthetics identities can be detected easily, hence preventing potential
synthetic identity fraud.

Deep fakes

Deep fakes are generally known as the falsified videos made using deep learning technology. They are made to fool the system and gain unauthorised access to the system. For instance, using deepfakes in face verifications systems, fraudsters can surpass the identity checks. Such videos are really close to real videos and not detected easily driving the need for more secure Video KYC solution.

Read more: Video-KYC – The ‘New Normal’ for Digital Customer Verification

Which industries can benefit from Video KYC?

There has been a significant shift in consumer behaviour due to trending digitisation. Industries are looking for better online solutions to meet changing consumer demands and survive this digital era. Video KYC solution is one of the technologies that will soon be integrated into various sectors, in fact, some industries have already started incorporating video identification for customer onboarding.
Following industries can benefit from AI-powered video KYC solution.

Banks and financial institutions

Banks and financial institutions have always been under the tight scrutiny of regulatory authorities. With stringent KYC and AML regulations in place, customer verification during the onboarding process is mandatory for all financial institutions. Manual verification is no longer an option, digital onboarding is what every bank needs. Video KYC can prove to be an effective way to verify customers in real-time and comply with KYC/AML requirements.

Checklist for best Video KYC solution

How to ensure your selected Video KYC solution is the best? Before taking the service, it is essential to do your homework regarding the features and functionalities of the solution. Only then you can assure that your selected solution is beneficial for your business. Here’s the checklist for best video KYC solution.

1. Global coverage

Due to digitisation, your customers can be from any part of the world. It is vital to opt for a solution that offers global coverage with proper language and document support.

2. Cost-effective

An effective Video identification solution is the one that allows reducing your KYC process costs without affecting the customer experience. For every business, pay as you go pricing feature is the best option.

3. Customised solution

It’s an understood fact that every business has different KPIs and business requirements. The video verification solution has different features to offer and not every enterprise needs all those features. The best solution provider is the one that presents a customised solution as per business needs.

4. Enterprise-grade security

Video KYC process involves handling valuable data of customers that needed to be secure according to international standards of data handling. You need a solution provider that offers top-notch encryption standards to prevent any kind of data theft and maintain consumers’ privacy.

5. Omnichannel user engagement

Customer satisfaction is the major factor that contributes to the growth of the business. A video KYC solution offering omnichannel for user engagement and verification adds to enhanced user experience because the user doesn’t have to switch channels to get the verification done.

US Elections 2020 is the talk of the town these days. But with COVID-19 pandemic going on how will election commission ensure fair and free election?

Is this the time to finally turn to digital identity verification to conduct fair elections?

This article covers the current situation of the election preparation in the US followed by the shortcomings in traditional voting systems. Towards the end, we will discuss how can identity verification can be the best way to achieve fair voting this year.

November 3 is going to introduce a new president for the US. On one hand, every presidential candidate is making effort to make their position strong but on the other hand, they are driving the narrative around the upcoming election’s legitimacy in their own divergent ways. But isn’t this what happens in every election?

Of course, but this time, the ongoing pandemic has made the situation critical. Citizens are scared to step out and authorities are facing challenges to organising fair elections. Donald Trump, amid potential intrusions in the mail-in ballots, showed utter detest for the proposed system. The statement from Trump has questioned the credibility of the mail-in ballots, raising another election challenge.

President Trump’s misleading rhetoric and false claims about voting by mail has raised fears among Republicans in some states where mail ballots could help them. Democrats worry an overreliance on the mail could lead to more of their votes going uncounted. https://t.co/uKuMUiCwEq

— The New York Times (@nytimes) September 30, 2020

There should be one method that all presidential candidates can agree to. We believe e-voting through identity verification can lead to secure and fair elections with reliable results not only in the US but in other countries as well.

Mail-in Ballots – What’s the challenge?

Till date, it is said that the US can opt for postal voting that can be secure and safe than in-person voting during this pandemic situation. But President Trump is clearly seen opposing it. Rather, he claims that the postal balloting is going to be an electoral fraud resulting in “rigged” election. This statement from Trump is quite controversial because he himself used mail-in ballot this year but it didn’t stop him from pointing out at states that are willing to take measures for mail-in ballots option.

Trump’s statement about postal ballot outlays different predicaments. The foremost is voter suppression. Postal ballots are not much common, and it’s obvious that if something is undermined, people are not going to use that. Secondly, if the postal balloting isn’t available for any reasons, or is maligned by the president and his representatives then voters will turnout for in-person voting. This will put the citizens at the risk of contracting COVID-19, and voters’ safety can’t be compromised at any cost.

Thirdly, with Trump’s incorrect claims regarding the legitimacy of postal ballots, there’s higher possibility for the President to reject the results in case he loses. The reason is postal ballot is not secure and there’s higher possibility of rigged voting. The votes can be manipulated leading to unfair elections. So what should be done to address these challenges?

Identity verification is the answer!

Online identity verification- the future of e-Voting

Electoral fraud is something we all have witnessed in previous elections. With mail-in ballots there’s a higher possibility of rigged elections. Conducting fair and free election is necessary for any democratic country and with the current pandemic going on, there’s a need for intelligent strategy incorporating secure technology to ensure open elections. Identity verification is the trending phenomenon laying foundation in every industry and e-voting is no different.

Casting a vote is the right of every citizen and that too with their free will. E-voting through face verification can prove to be an effective way to ensure secure election and mitigate any electoral fraud. With the digital identity verification in place, only authorised citizens of the country can caste vote and that too from the comfort of their homes. While in-person ballots pose a potential risk of virus spread, e-voting can be safest way during this pandemic.

Face verification to deter election crimes

Recently, FBI issued a warning on potential election crimes ahead of 2020. The FBI announced a full-fledged list of the election crimes that might turn into fedral crime if the states unable to conduct fair elections.

These crimes are common in every country conducting elections in a traditional way. Every presidential party lookout for various ways to get votes in their favour, either legally or illegally. Through face verification, such election crimes can be combatted since only registered citizens can vote and that too only once. With everything automated, voters will only have to show their face in camera to verify their identity and vote their favorite candidate without any pressure or threats. Also, the officials won’t be able to tamper ballots due to real-time voting results.

Have queries that how Shufti Pro can facilitate eVoting systems?