Liminal, Microblink forecast 2025 trends in identity document verification

Synthetic identities, deepfakes and other AI-driven attacks are prompting a surge in interest in custom fraud protection tools. In a recent webinar, executives from Liminal and Microblink offer insights into how fraud is driving change in the whirlwind world of document verification.

Will Charnley, COO of Liminal, says that, both inside and outside identity document verification, the last 20-plus years have seen a physical-first consumer environment to one built primarily on digital experience – a digital transformation that was expedited by the Covid-19 pandemic. At present, the average online person interacts regularly with at least twenty digital accounts every year. Most importantly, people like digital interactions: Charnley says 83 percent of consumers express a preference for them exclusively.

Identity document verification is, by necessity, changing in tandem with broader digital transformation. Charnley says its market is changing, too. “What we’re seeing is that buyers need better built solutions, depending on their pain points and use cases, to meet consumer demand when it comes to privacy, when it comes to security, when it comes to customer experience.”

Many identity verification providers’ long-term focus on financial services is shifting. Charnley says the market is evolving outside of its historical roots in compliance to service buyers beyond the banking and financial services sectors.

New digital identity cases are emerging in parts of the customer journey beyond account opening; Charnley cites age assurance as a prime example, noting Australia’s recent move to restrict users under 16 from creating social media accounts. Market options, likewise, are expanding. “There are different ways to verify age and finding the right size for your use case is incredibly important.”

92% of businesses not equipped to fight GenAI fraud

New types of mobile digital transactions mean more entry points for fraud. Charnley says that it’s more challenging than ever to prevent rapidly accelerating fraud, losses from which are projected to crest 100 billion by 2030. Synthetic identities, Gen-AI created deepfakes and other hostile avatars make fraud prevention crucial across evolving use cases.

“Things are clearly getting worse,” Charnley says. Financial services buyers expect AI-enabled fraud to grow substantially in the next two years. “Generative AI has made committing fraud incredibly easy and the quality has gone way up. So we have higher volumes of fraud, more sophisticated fraud attacks, and it’s more accessible to anyone.”

It’s all forcing organizations to change their fraud assessment models from the ground up: 92 percent say they do not have adequate defenses against GenAI and deepfakes.

Albert Roux, EVP of product for Microblink, says firms probably have more fraud than they think, and that deepfake detection is far more complicated than simply honing in on widely-used platforms like ChatGPT. Multimodal biometric protections and effective liveness detection are needed for a layered approach to defense against fraud.

As with underwear, so with user experience: friction most unwelcome

Biometric authentication, in particular, is popular with buyers looking for a way to secure customer authentication and simplify account recovery. Roux discusses “device intelligence” that ties a device to an identity and can access behavioral biometrics, perform facial recognition, and so on.

Trust is, as always, a major concern for customers using businesses outside of banking, with 31 percent expressing concern about data privacy. But so is the often-neglected UX factor. Friction applied long enough will eventually burn: 15 percent of customers still say there is too much friction in user experience, and 26 percent say account openings take too much time. Abandonment is common.

Charnley says “now is the right time to act” on securing identity document verification using biometric security tools and other layered security measures, but that it’s key to implement tailored solutions that are optimized or designed for specific use cases.

“You really need to, as a practitioner, make sure you’re buying a solution that fits your specific needs.” Find solutions with expertise outside of financial services, and the results are likely to be less tied to a compliance model and more attuned to new types of digital fraud.

Many identity verification systems are still holdovers from the compliance days. But those are over now: identity verification is not just for banks anymore, and customers across the spectrum want smooth, secure experiences they can trust. In the prism of digital identity, new facets and colors continue to emerge.

Article Topics

deepfakes  |  digital ID  |  digital identity  |  document verification  |  fraud prevention  |  generative AI  |  Liminal  |  market report  |  Microblink  |  synthetic identity fraud