Clearview enters selfie biometrics market as KYC firms sign up onboarding clients

Clearview is joining the selfie biometrics market and has signed up its first client. Biometrics-enabled know your customer (KYC) and digital ID companies from Europe and Asia including Digital Wallet, IDnow and Thales have been busy supporting new financial services, digital onboarding and remittances for foreign workers. And a Ukrainian KYC startup earned a $50,000 in grant supporting local businesses during the war.

Clearview launches selfie biometrics for customer onboarding

Clearview AI has unveiled its new commercial face biometrics service, which does not include access to the company’s controversial reference database, as the company told Reuters and a recent Montgomery Summit investor event in California.

The physical and logical access control application will rely on biometric reference and probe images provided by the end-user on a voluntary basis, with Columbian lending fintech Vaale its first customer onboarding client.

Vaale says Clearview’s biometrics will reduce its identity verification cost by around 20 percent while improving accuracy and speed, compared to using Amazon Rekognition.

“We can’t have duplicate accounts and we have to avoid fraud,” says Vaale CEO Santiago Tobón. “Without facial recognition, we can’t make Vaale work.”

A partnership has also been formed between Clearview and a U.S.-based company that provides visitor management systems to schools, according to the report.

Reuters notes the use of the infamous database to train the algorithms that power the new application, though images submitted to the new application will not be used as training data.

Digital Wallet launches remittance app in Singapore

Digital Wallet, a Japanese fintech and AI developer, has released its Smiles remittance app in Singapore for foreign workers there wanting to send money home.

Smiles performs mobile KYC tasks using AI and machine learning to verify the identities of those sending remittances to home countries. An announcement from Digital Wallet notes the challenges foreign workers include population lockdowns, border closures and travel restrictions. Those are challenges that the company says its app can help with.

Eiji Miyakawa, CEO of Digital Wallet, says, “The challenging circumstances from the global pandemic and geopolitical tensions have impacted foreign workers worldwide struggling to take care of families back home. Our purpose is to support foreign workers and ensure the lifeline to their families is timely and convenient by providing a secure, round-the-clock mobile remittance channel.”

Singapore has many foreign workers. Its Ministry of Manpower says 1.2 million foreign workers mingle with 5.4 million native residents.

The company says the initial outbound destinations from Singapore are The Philippines and Indonesia with plans to add Bangladesh, Vietnam and India this year.

Digital Wallet competitors addressing KYC for remittances include Onfido and Trulioo.

IDnow to verify Spanish car subs clients

German KYC company IDnow is preparing digital identity verification through face biometrics for customers of Spanish car subscription company Bipi.

As part of the partnership, the Bipi app users will be able to verify their photo IDs against a selfie biometric taken through IDnow’s IDcheck.io.

IDnow recently booked casino consultancy SCCG Management as a biometric onboarding client.

Thales adds digital ID verification step to French telecom

Thales is collaborating with business support platform triPica to develop a mobile app for a French telecom looking to digitize customer experiences and verify identities with selfie biometrics.

Thales’ identity verification and biometric product Trusted Digital ID is being integrated into triPica’s Business Support System during subscription registration. From there, customers of Bouygues Telecom can manage their subscriptions and billing through a mobile app.

Emmanuel Unguran, senior vice president mobile connectivity solutions at Thales, says, “The user experience, identity management and the pleasure of using an intuitive and secure application are all key factors that, together with triPica, we place at the core of our innovations.”

Thales’ digital identity and security division is growing. It notched a 16 percent increase in year-over-year sales and order volume in the first quarter of 2022.

Kycaid awarded $50k grant in Ukrainian startup program

A startup support fund that aids Ukrainian firms staying in the country despite the war has handed a $50,000 grant to KYC and anti-money laundering company Kycaid.

The 7Wings fund was founded after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February to back Ukrainian startups that have the promise to rebuild and reshape the Ukrainian economy following the devastation of the country.

Kycaid’s KYC and AML app performs ID verification, fraud prevention and biometric verification through video as well as liveness checks and age verification. The company earned the grant for its onboarding and compliance tools.

The startup says the grant will be used to accelerate in other markets.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  Clearview AI  |  face biometrics  |  identity verification  |  IDnow  |  KYC  |  Kycaid  |  onboarding  |  selfie biometrics  |  Thales Digital Identity and Security