Shufti Pro, Innovatrics, and Fourthline ink KYC deals as consumer interest in AML spikes

Selfie biometrics and liveness detection vendors are extending their reach amid an upswing in consumer concern about money laundering and the regulations to prevent it.

KYC firm Shufti Pro has partnered with the forex trading platform IFX Brokers to provide compliance and onboarding capabilities.

IFX Brokers provides Over the Counter (OTC) derivatives to the South African market, providing retail and institutional clients with OTC derivative products across six asset classes.

The companies say this partnership will streamline the broker’s onboarding process, lowering fraud and identity verification time, using Shufti’s identity verification technology to authenticate customers’ identity via biometric and identity document checks.

Slovakian Bank Tatra Banka is now set to offer biometric verification-as-a-service to third-party companies.

The new service uses biometric algorithms from Innovatrics through by its integration partner, Slovakian tech firm Softec, which it says have been used to help customers open bank accounts for over five years.

The technology uses a selfie of the user, which it compares with a photo from the user’s ID, and performs a liveness check.

The solution can also cross-check with the database of the Slovakian Ministry of Interior, and the bank says it is currently adding other forms of ID to the list of supported documents.

However, foreigners in Slovakia will still have to verify their accounts in person due to the country’s AML restrictions.

The bank says some unnamed companies have already implemented the solution.

In other KYC news, digital identity firm Fourthline has partnered with Estonian core banking fintech Tuum.

The partnership will see Fourthline’s customer onboarding, compliance, KYC, and AML capabilities integrated into Tuum’s cloud-based core banking platform.

The companies say the new partnership will help financial services providers to “quickly and easily” roll out in new markets, as well as combat the uncertainty caused by the upcoming EU MiCA crypto legislation and the new AML authority in the EU outlined in March 2023.

The news comes as AML-related concerns may be gathering more mainstream interest, at least in the UK.

Research by verification provider Credas Technologies has revealed a 97 percent increase in Google search interest for Anti-Money Laundering (AML)-related keywords.

Credas has analyzed global Google Trends data for AML-related search terms to see how the subject’s ‘Interest Score’ has changed since the start of the year.

In this study, Interest Scores represent search interest relative to the highest point ever recorded on 100 point scale.

In January 2023, the worldwide Interest Score for AML was 12.5 as per the research.

By May, the score had shot up 37 per cent, to 17.1.

India is the country most interested in AML, with a score of 21.5, while Australia and UAE both have Interest Scores of 12.3, while Canada scores 10.3.

The UK’s score of 8.7 falls in the middle of the table, but represents a 97.2 percent increase in search interest since January of this year.

Article Topics

AML  |  biometric liveness detection  |  Credas  |  Fourthline  |  identity verification  |  Innovatrics  |  KYC  |  selfie biometrics  |  Shufti Pro