Top KYC Solution Providers and How to Choose the Best One

KYC, or know your customer, is an important process for many industries and plays a huge role during customer onboarding. While it is often mentioned in the context of the financial sector, it is legally required in gambling, alcohol, and even travel and tourism sectors. 

Businesses in these industries need robust KYC solutions that can verify and onboard their customers’ identities without causing unnecessary delays or the risk of compliance failures. Customers rarely look forward to KYC processes and often view them as a hindrance, and the wrong solution can drastically affect customer satisfaction and retention rates for a business. 

Let’s have a look at how KYC solutions work and how you can choose the best provider for your business. 

What is a KYC provider? 

In many industries, regulations demand organizations know who is availing their products or services and verify their customers are who they claim to be. 

These regulations aim to prevent money laundering operations and ensure extremist organizations are not using these products or services. They largely target financial institutions, but other industries can also fall under these rules. 

A KYC provider works with these companies to verify their customers’ IDs. These providers offer identity verification services with the help of verified databases of identity documents. When customers share their IDs, KYC providers will compare them against their database to verify their authenticity. 

Organizations without robust KYC or document verification may face severe fines and penalties for non-compliance, which may reach millions or even billions of dollars and may even include prison time. It may also attract stricter scrutiny from regulatory bodies, including higher KYC standards and frequent audits.

What are the benefits of using KYC technology?

KYC technology helps companies know who they’re doing business with. This can help them make better business decisions and, at the same time, comply with regulations. But it doesn’t end there.

Let’s review some of the benefits of using KYC technology. 

Simplifying the identification process

In many industries, such as gambling, alcohol, marijuana, and others, businesses cannot offer their services before verifying their customers’ identities. However, manual verification is often not fast or accurate enough for regulatory compliance and customer satisfaction. 

A KYC solution can accurately check customer IDs against multiple data sources and verify them in a short time. The ID process can also help these businesses in payment fraud prevention. 

Fighting money laundering

One of the main goals of KYC regulations is to prevent money laundering activities and other forms of financial crimes. These anti-money laundering (or AML) regulations work by verifying customers’ identities and ensuring all transactions can be easily tracked to the source. 

AML and KYC laws go a long way to counter terrorism financing. It’s an important step for security and stability.  

Preventing fraudulent activity

Businesses investing in KYC solutions can protect themselves from financial fraud to a large extent. In many scenarios, businesses often end up taking the loss in the event of payment fraud or other financial crimes. Retail D2C and B2C businesses, and their customers, are particularly vulnerable to identity theft scams and stolen payment cards. 

Robust identity verification and KYC solutions can help companies fight digital fraud in their business activities. 

Protecting customer data 

Besides reducing financial risks, KYC solutions can also protect customer data. As a business, you have a moral (and often legal) responsibility to safeguard your customer data. A KYC solution can ensure that only your customers can access their data (and no more) and that you don’t inadvertently share your customer data with potential identity thieves.

This is particularly important for online businesses and companies managing sensitive customer data.

Protecting from unauthorized third-party access

Businesses often have strict rules about who they will provide services or products to. This may be partly due to regulatory reasons and partly for ease of doing business. For instance, many B2B vendors have policies so that extremist organizations don’t access their services or products. 

However, many third parties use fake IDs or other ways to access these services without the business owner’s knowledge. It could be organizations involved in the sale of banned goods attempting to use financial institutions for money laundering or extremist organizations attempting to purchase electronic devices. 

Robust KYC solutions can help prevent this, keep businesses safe, and protect their reputations. 

Protecting your business 

The absence of KYC measures can increase the risk of financial fraud in your business. It can also expose your business to fines and penalties and can even affect your reputation in the long run.

KYC solutions help your organization in fraud prevention, risk reduction, and regulatory compliance. It makes building trust with customers easier, reducing the likelihood of fraudulent activities and staying compliant with the ever-changing regulatory landscape.

Top KYC providers you should consider for your business

KYC is a vital process that can be made easy and seamless with the help of some top-notch KYC providers. With them, you can streamline your process and ensure your business stays compliant while also providing a better user experience for your customers. 

Here’s a look at the top choices and their capabilities and services.

Microblink

Microblink offers state-of-the-art KYC and identity verification solutions. These solutions are five times faster than alternate solutions and can verify over 2,500 ID documents from more than 170 countries. 

Powered by artificial intelligence, Microblink’s BlinkID can detect attempts to spoof or forge IDs and works with 45 comprehensive fraud checks, and is benchmarked 5x faster than its competitors.

The solution supports Android, iOS, Flutter SDKs, and cloud-hosted and self-hosted APIs. 

Shufti Pro 

Shufti Pro is a powerful KYC solution that scans and verifies common ID documents from more than 200 countries. The solution can scan documents in bulk with 99% accuracy and prevent multiple enrollments or duplicate accounts in your systems. 

Trulioo 

Trulioo is an identity verification solution that covers more than 190 countries and works with more than 450 data sources. Trulioo offers protection against AML by working with over 6,000 global watchlists and using biometrics on top of ID documents to verify customers. 

Ondato 

Ondato offers multiple solutions for KYC, KYB (know your business), and monitoring transactions on your platform. It also offers business anti-money laundering capabilities through its software platform. 

Fractal ID

Fractal ID offers KYC solutions largely to Web3 companies. Their solutions are designed for decentralized apps, blockchain ecosystems, investors, venture capitalists, and accelerators. 

Sumsub 

Sumsub offers high-speed KYC and KYB for businesses in different industries, including fintech, crypto, transportation, and more. They also offer transaction monitoring and fraud prevention solutions to protect your business. 

Seon 

Seon offers a wide range of tools to protect businesses from financial risks. They offer KYC and AML solutions and tech to prevent bonus abuse, chargeback fraud, payment fraud, checkout fraud, and other forms of fraud associated with eCommerce and online businesses. 

Onfido 

Onfido offers digital identity solutions catering to online and eCommerce businesses. Besides ID and document verification, Onfido also looks out for passive fraud signals to mitigate the risk for your business. 

Refinitiv 

Refinitiv is a leader in financial market data, offering KYC, ID verification, and account verification solutions for businesses. They also offer due diligence and onboarding solutions. 

KYC-Chain 

KYC-Chain offers various solutions for verifying customers and preventing money laundering. Besides traditional AML tools, they also have a set of tools to prevent money laundering through cryptocurrency or using blockchain tech. 

ComplyAdvantage 

ComplyAdvantage works largely in the B2B segment and offers KYB, transaction monitoring, and fraud prevention solutions. They also offer solutions for screening customers against sanctions, watchlists, and even negative media coverage. 

Mitek Systems 

Mitek Systems specializes in digital identity verification. Their KYC solution offers document verification, liveness detection, biometric verification, and more. 

How to choose a KYC provider 

Here’s how you can choose a KYC provider that works best for your business:

Create a list of requirements

The first step in choosing a KYC provider is to understand your business requirements. The specific needs vary with applicable regulations, compliance requirements, the nature of your business, and the overall risk management strategy.

For instance, some businesses may need on-site ID verification, while some may need online verification. Some businesses may need liveness detection and biometric verification, while a simple ID verification may be enough for other businesses.

Creating a list of requirements will help you narrow down the best-suited provider for your business. 

Research and compile a list of KYC providers

There is no shortage of KYC providers or KYC tools. A simple Google search will provide a long list of KYC and AML compliance tool providers. Compiling a list of those meeting your specific business needs will help you choose a provider that aligns with your goals and requirements.

Evaluate different providers 

Check if they meet all your requirements. Most providers will happily offer you demos and free trials, so take the time to check them out. Besides AML, these vendors may also have other tools to prevent fraud or streamline the customer onboarding process, which can reduce your risk and time to market. 

Consider future needs and scalability requirements 

Considering your business requirements, in the long run, is a good idea since changing vendors may be costly. As your business grows, you may need stronger verification solutions, and you’ll need them to scale with your business. That said, you’ll want to check if the vendor can keep up with your growing business. 

Key features to look for in KYC software 

KYC software provides various features that help organizations easily identify and verify their customers’ identities. These include: 

• Helps in compliance with all applicable KYC rules: Make sure your KYC software can help your business stay compliant with all KYC regulations applicable in your jurisdiction and the industry your business is in. 
• Can scale with the business: Your KYC solution must be able to grow with your business and support its needs. It must help with user identification and verification at scale. 
• High-speed verification: When working with customers, speed is paramount. Slow verification can cause your business to lose out on customers. 
• Accuracy and data quality: Make sure the software meets the accuracy and data quality requirements your business demands. 
• User experience: Ensure the software is easy to use, even for people who are not very tech-savvy. 
• Integration capabilities: Your KYC solution must integrate with all your customer-facing solutions, including your website and mobile app. 
• Support options: Check for the vendor’s support in case your software faces any glitches or other issues. 

These features will help your business be fully compliant with regulatory requirements while also providing a seamless and efficient customer experience.

The importance of choosing the right KYC solution provider

KYC processes play a huge role in modern business transactions. Most industries are required by regulations to collect their customers’/clients’ ID documents and verify them. These companies need robust KYC solutions to stay compliant without inconveniencing customers or creating roadblocks in their processes. 

The good news is that modern KYC solutions use cutting-edge AI and machine learning algorithms to detect fraud and fake IDs, spot identity theft, and protect transactions on their platform. Businesses just have to ensure the solution they choose fits all their requirements. Contact us today to see how we can meet your specifications.