Accura Scan contactless biometrics, Signzy partnership to tackle fresh KYC challenges

Indian biometrics and digital ID providers are forming new partnerships to firm up defense against increasingly sophisticated forms of fraud.

New contactless options from Accura Scan

Accura Scan, which provides digital onboarding, KYC and authentication for banking, fintech and telecom firms worldwide, has announced the introduction of contactless finger biometrics and document liveness checks into its suite of digital ID products.

A release says the India-based firm’s biometric fingerprint verification forgoes the need for additional hardware by capturing and analyzing finger vein and fingerprint ridge patterns with a device’s built-in camera. The process is entirely touchless and can be conducted remotely.

It joins the firm’s new document liveness detection capabilities, which authenticates identity documents through an advanced real-time AI analysis of features such as paper texture and holograms. Together, the two fraud-prevention measures simplify onboarding by eliminating the need for in-person physical transactions. They also contribute to regulatory compliance for the growing list of standards and requirements for secure KYC/AML – of particular note to businesses in which compliance is mandatory.

Signzy ends a big 2023 with partnership for reusable identity

Digital onboarding provider Signzy has issued a release to announce a partnership with Verified Inc., enabling it to integrate digital identity services into its AI-based eKYC and fraud prevention toolkits for the banking, insurance, lending, gaming and payments industries.

San Francisco-based Verified Inc. operates a digital ID card network that allows businesses to issue and accept digital ID cards, and provides wallet services for users. It says its 1-Click Signup offers safe and seamless identity sharing for over 90 percent user conversion, increasing efficiency and minimizing the risk of identity theft.

Aidan McCarty, CEO of Verified Inc., says “1-Click Signup truly changes the game in the IDV space, and is the new gold standard in onboarding,” and calls the deal with Signzy a “huge win for everyone… most importantly end-consumers.”

For its part, Signzy, which is headquartered in Bengaluru, India, says the deal (for which terms were not disclosed) will further the company’s mission of safe and compliant onboarding and digital ID verification.

“We’re excited to see the growth and continued proliferation of reusable digital identities across multiple industries,” says Ankit Ratan, CEO and co-founder of Signzy. “Together, we are allowing users access to create and utilize digital IDs, making their journeys across companies much more accessible, fast and reliant.”

Signzy has enjoyed a run of success, winning recognition from industry insiders for its fraud prevention and compliance efforts, and scoring a patent for “a revolutionary method and system in identifying and detecting fraud with an automated analysis of human behavior.”

Innovation in fraud prevention welcome as deepfakes threaten to upend video KYC

The Economic Times of India reports that the threat of deepfakes is rattling startups in the video KYC space, as businesses increasingly come to rely on secure and compliant eKYC tools for customer onboarding, and fraudsters continue to develop new and better fakes with which to fool them.

In a video posted on X (still colloquially known as Twitter) Nithin Kamath – the 37-year-old CEO of stock brokerage Zerodha, and the youngest billionaire in India – says that, as deepfakes improve, “it will only become harder over time to validate if the person on the other side is real or AI-generated. This problem will be bigger for banks that have more stringent regulatory requirements during onboarding.”

The message is all the more resonant considering that Kamath reveals at the end of the video that it has been delivered not by the real man, but a deepfake.

Deepfakes have quickly become a growing concern among Indian IT professionals, following a wave of deepfake videos of celebrities and notable Indians that went viral this year.

Article Topics

Accura Scan  |  biometrics  |  contactless biometrics  |  deepfakes  |  digital ID  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  identity verification  |  India  |  KYC  |  onboarding  |  Signzy  |  Verified