Microblink powers lightning-fast ID processing for Trak Scanner to expedite AML checks

“Trak Scanner was built to help Canadian realtors deliver the most efficient home buying process, specifically pertaining to the FINTRAC form required for all large cash transactions. Implementing technology like BlinkID helped make our goal a reality, as agents are now saving upwards of 30 minutes on each deal.”

– Marina Glasser, Marketing Director, Trak Scanner

Obstacle: Manual AML reporting processes hinder the real estate sales cycle

Trak Scanner is a mobile application utilized by Canadian real estate agents and brokers to accelerate the FINTRAC form process. The Financial Transactions and Reporting Analysis Center of Canada (FINTRAC for short) is the country’s financial intelligence unit, tasked with the detection, prevention, and deterrence of money laundering and financing of terrorist activities. The Canadian federal government requires real estate agents and brokers to complete and submit a FINTRAC form any time clients make an offer on a home. 

Historically, agents and brokers manually enter an applicant’s driver’s license information alongside details about the real estate transaction (e.g., if there was any potential money laundering risk). Realtors in Canada are even required to flag a certain number of transactions each year. The overall accuracy and reliable delivery of the FINTRAC form is essential for any real estate form, resulting in audits and heavy fines by the Canadian government for brokerages that fail to comply.

“We built Trak Scanner because the manual, paper process of completing the FINTRAC form was tedious, annoying, and time-consuming,” said Marina Glasser, Marketing Director at Trak Scanning.

When developing the app that is today known as Trak Scanner, the team began looking for solutions that could easily integrate and reliably automate the ID capture, classification, and data extraction steps of the FINTRAC process.

Solution: Automating ID processing to drive efficiency

After exploring options, Trak Scanner chose Microblink and implemented BlinkID to capture, extract, and input data from Canadian identity documents into the FINTRAC form. 

“Integrating the BlinkID mobile SDK into our tech stack was straightforward,” said Glasser. “Now, agents and brokers only need to spend time assessing the real estate transaction in question, with zero manual ID data entry. Once the FINTRAC form is completed in our app, it converts to a PDF and is emailed to the respective realtor.”

By utilizing a flexible AI-based solution like BlinkID, Trak Scanner empowers Canadian brokerages, like Team Glasser, to accelerate this crucial compliance check without sacrificing accuracy. The ability to scan IDs from mobile devices and handle the FINTRAC form process has even made it possible for Team Glasser’s global brokerage to leverage the Trak Scanner and unlock efficiencies for the brokerage.

Impact: Accelerating the Canadian FINTRAC form process with BlinkID

“It used to take upwards of 30 minutes for agents at Team Glasser to manually enter an applicant’s information from documents like a driver’s license into the FINTRAC Form,” said Glasser.

Today, thanks to BlinkID, identity documents can be automatically captured and processed, allowing key information to be accurately extracted in seconds to comply with government regulations. Faster processing and less paperwork also mean agents and brokers are able to speed up the sales and closing cycle, driving more potential revenue opportunities — without having to worry about the operational and financial headaches of non-compliance. 

For the Trak Scanner development team, BlinkID’s robust integration platform, detailed technical documentation, and easy-to-integrate solution meant they were able to implement – and deliver – faster. “The integration saved us hundreds of developer hours. We were able to move from Objective-C to Swift in just a couple of weeks despite having to rebuild our iOS app. Without BlinkID, if we had to manually update the identity verification code, it would have been a full, quarter-long sprint or more.”