Fourthline biometrics, Prove behavior analysis give fintechs KYC alternatives

The growth of digital-based financial services means more transactions that must meet regulatory requirements for comprehensive customer verification and authentication. New KYC deals for Fourthline and Prove reflect this growing demand for alternative customer identification methods as Checkout.com rolls out facial authentication to help customers streamline onboarding processes.

Fourthline secures Riverty KYC deal

KYC solution provider Fourthline has announced it will provide its biometric-based customer digital identity verification to German fintech Riverty for onboarding customers in Germany and the Netherlands.

Riverty, part of the multinational conglomerate Bertelsmann Group, offers BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later) payments, accounting and debt collection products. The firm says it has more than 25 million consumers and processes over 1 billion transactions a year.

The deal represents another move towards introducing alternative customer identification methods in Germany’s highly regulated environment, according to Fourthline.

Germany has traditionally relied on Video-Ident for remote customer identification, a live video interview with an operator prescribed by the German financial regulator BaFin. The country, however, also allows for remote identification through the German eID and KYC processes involving a qualified electronic signature (QES) and bank account verification (BAV).

Since 2024, bank account verification (BAV) has become increasingly popular. The process involves biometric-based identification and verification.

“Our technology offers a seamless alternative to traditional video identification methods while ensuring full compliance with BaFin requirements,” says Krik Gunning, Fourthline’s co-founder and CEO.

Fourthline offers a modular platform of identity verification and compliance tools, including KYC and Anti-Money Laundering (AML). Its new client will be able to access components for customer onboarding through a single API, including identity document verification, biometric data analysis and verification models, the Amsterdam-headquartered company explains in a release.

Aside from Riverty, Fourthline has been serving fintechs, payment firms, online banks and brokerages such as N26, Qonto, Trade Republic, Scalapay and more.

The company has recently released a case study with German digital bank N26 describing how it prevented a group of fraudsters from outside the EU that attempted to remotely take over an account from an EU-based money mule, a person who helps transfer illegally acquired money.

The fraudsters were caught after attempting to fool N26 and Fourthline’s authentication system with a pre-recorded video. The attempt was first flagged by the company’s geolocation feature and then by its biometric authentication system.

Prove secures deal with ebankIT

Digital identity verification company Prove has secured a strategic partnership with digital banking platform ebankIT, which provides software to clients in retail and business banking as well as credit unions.

Prove plans to integrate its identity verification capabilities into ebankIT’s platform to boost security. Aside from identity verification, the U.S.-based firm analyzes behavioral and transactional patterns connected to customers’ phone numbers, identity risk assessments and automated KYC compliance checks.

“Incorporating Prove’s identity verification solutions enables us to offer an elevated level of security while streamlining access to essential banking services,” says Paul Provenzano, ebankIT’s head of U.S. sales.

Portugal-headquartered ebankIT offers tools for web and mobile banking, digital onboarding, personal finance management, customer support and more to clients such as South African fintech company and biometric authentication provider Entersekt, Portuguese software development firm ITSektor, Switzerland’s Unblu and U.S.-based Finotta.

In 2023, ebankIT and Entersekt announced an integrated biometrics-powered authentication product.

As for Prove, the company recently acquired digital ID startup Portabl to expand its mobile-centric identity verification and authentication. Its last deal with Blend Labs was announced in April.

Checkout.com rolls out facial authentication

Digital payments company Checkout.com has upgraded its identity verification software with a biometric face authentication feature.

The company works with clients such as DocuSign, Uber Eats and European fintech Swan. The new option was introduced to help businesses to verify and re-authenticate returning users using live video and facial matching during password recovery, employee onboarding and accessing platforms.

The face authentication feature has already helped customers achieve up to an 8-point increase in returning-user conversion rates, according to Checkout. Its client Swan, on the other hand, says that the feature has doubled user conversion rates for the passcode reset process.

“With face authentication from Checkout.com, we’ve transformed our passcode reset process, cutting it down from three days to just minutes while strengthening security,” says Swan’s Senior Product Manager Benjamin Grall.

The product was designed to support a broad set of industries, including government, healthcare, financial services, e-signatures, food delivery, loyalty programs and airlines. It also employs liveness detection to verify users against their onboarding data while detecting spoofing attempts and is built to meet FIDO Alliance certification requirements, Checkout says in a release.

Article Topics

banking  |  behavioral analysis  |  biometrics  |  Checkout.com  |  digital identity  |  facial authentication  |  Fourthline  |  identity verification  |  KYC  |  Prove