Digital Identity Verification: A Key Component of Secure Online Bank Account Opening
The entire planet is heading towards automation. Even simple everyday tasks are being completed online. A significant activity among these is opening a bank account. Previously, this process involved physically visiting a bank, filling out a form, and documentation.
Nowadays, most banks have introduced the option to open a bank account online. However, while this process has benefits, it also carries the risk of security impeachment. Digital identity verification helps ensure the safety of your bank account. This article will outline fundamental information regarding this crucial component.
Digital identity verification: An overview
In essence, digital identity verification means digitally confirming an individual’s identity. When an individual initiates opening a bank account online, they must upload certain documents. These can be PAN cards, Voter IDs, driver’s licenses, etc. The digital identity verification system then inspects whether a person is the same as the person in the submitted documents.
Besides documents required for opening bank account, face biometrics and facial recognition are also used. The process is also conducted to ensure a person is an actual individual.
How does digital identity verification work?
There are several ways to verify identity digitally. The three significant steps undertaken by banks are briefed.
Identity Document Verification
Verifying ID documents is crucial to onboarding and establishing new bank accounts. Document verification is conducted to determine whether an applicant’s KYC ID documents are authentic. The aim of this process is to capture, extract, and analyze ID data to verify identity documents issued by the government.
The device takes a picture of the applicant’s ID document with the built-in camera on a mobile or handheld device. After that, the image is examined using sophisticated authenticity algorithms and artificial intelligence to generate an authenticity score that may be used to verify identity.
Biometrics
Biometric information includes eye size, location between the two eyes, etc. Facial comparison employs sophisticated algorithms to condense visual traits into a uniform dataset to extract biometric details. It is possible to ascertain whether two photos belong to the same person by comparing two datasets. Facial comparison can demonstrate an applicant’s presence if one image comes from a pre-confirmed source and the other is a real-time photo of them at the time of application.
Liveness Verification
Any facial biometric technique must be able to identify fraudulent activity and faking. The most popular spoofing method presents a previously obtained static image of a person for comparison with the reliable source image. A liveness-detecting method may prevent this and verify the individual’s presence. The most popular liveness detection method requires the user to make a sequence of head movements to demonstrate liveness.
Advantages of digital identity verification
Even though digital verification while opening a bank account online might appear confusing, it has tremendous advantages. These are:
- Enhance Security: The primary benefit of this process is upgrading and ensuring your bank account’s security. Digital identity verification ensures that the individual accessing the account is the authorized account holder, helping to prevent fraudulent activity and identity theft.
- Maintaining rules: Digital identity verification assures customers meet regulatory requirements, including KYC rules, by precisely verifying their identities during the account opening process.
- Customer Experience: Digital identity verification methods, such as online document submission or mobile-based verification, can provide convenient and user-friendly experiences. In addition to documentation, travel costs can also be avoided.
- Environmental Sustainability: Although not a direct benefit, paperless verification indirectly influences the environment. It reduces paper and vehicle use.
Conclusion
The process to open bank account online is easy and accessible. Banks have introduced a user-friendly interface with advanced security measures to enhance customer experience. Digital identity verification is a component utilized to facilitate remote onboarding for new account opening and lending. Incorporating digital identity verification into bank accounts is a revolutionary step towards a safer, more effective, and client-focused banking environment. Financial institutions may improve client happiness, strengthen fraud defenses, and expedite operations using cutting-edge technology like automation, biometrics, and ID document verification. These factors contribute to a more widespread acceptance of online bank account openings.
