Fintech company Plaid moves into biometric ID verification, KYC and AML checks

Plaid, a fintech company and app that connects users to their financial accounts, is adding a biometric identity verification solution with know your customer and anti-money laundering (KYC and AML) capabilities to form a more exhaustive set of tools for its onboarding platform.

In a blog post, Plaid Head of Identity Alain Meier announced the company’s Identity Verification (IDV) and Monitor, a KYC and AML solution. IDV is said to verify identities in under 30 seconds with facial authentication from selfie biometrics and secured against synthetic identity fraud, presentation attacks, and account takeovers. It also incorporates a risk engine that analyzes email, phone, IP address, and device ID to prevent fraud.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Meier told the news site that, “This ultimately helps build trust and security for the entire ecosystem as more people onboard to new fintech apps and services. That’s why we are expanding our platform to now include identity verification and new tools for fast and easy account funding and disbursements.”

Additionally, Plaid takes a step into KYC and AML checks with Monitor, which compares applying customers against government AML and politically exposed persons (PEP) lists.

The integration of biometrics to build a digital ID onboarding solution was made possible with Plaid’s acquisition of Cognito in January. The buy-out was completed for $250 million in cash and stock.

Plaid has currently raised $734.3 million according to Crunchbase, with its most recent given figure being a $425 million Series D fund in April 2021 led by Altimeter Capital.

Plaid joins a bustling biometric identity verification market that Goode Intelligence estimates will be a $17.2 billion market by 2026.

Article Topics

AML  |  biometrics  |  digital identity  |  document verification  |  face biometrics  |  facial authentication  |  identity verification  |  KYC  |  onboarding  |  Plaid  |  selfie biometrics