Identity Verification: The determining factor in online customer onboarding

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Market operators must ensure that there is a level of trust between all participants using their platform. This requires ensuring a robust onboarding process.

As social human beings, we are taught from childhood the importance of living in society. It is natural for us to communicate with others, but sharing is not easy. We have all had bad experiences and have felt that there are certain people with whom it is not worth sharing: mistrust is born. If we transfer this to companies… which ones inspire trust and which ones don’t? 

The sharing economy is an economic model defined as an activity based on Peer to Peer (P2P) exchange of acquiring, providing or exchanging access to goods and services often facilitated by a community-based online platform.  

The growth of the sector is striking and much of this is attributable to better technology: mobile devices that provide faster and easier access to services, as well as back-end technology that can better profile, match, review, monitor and manage payments.  

Successful Identity Verification: A Matter of Trust  

However, when we talk about sharing, the fundamental aspect is people. Sharing services is essentially a way of connecting the skills and services of one person to another. At its core, a sharing service must clarify the ambiguous questions of quality, of accuracy, of delivering on the promise. It all comes down to trust: Can you trust that qualification? Can you trust that profile? Can you trust that person not to steal from you or let you down?  

Ensuring that markets have the necessary trust starts in the onboarding process. Any person or company signing up to participate in the exchange economy must be properly vetted. All well-designed markets must take steps to know who they are dealing with or, in the case of a company, what business they are dealing with.  

While vetting may seem simple enough, the complexities of digitally verifying a person or company are a serious and complex problem, especially when dealing with a global audience transacting in today’s borderless economy. There are numerous data points providing different analyses. Data providers have different data, access requirements, system protocols, data usage rules, reporting formats and other variables. Obtaining secure access to a source is difficult enough to verify identities online. Privacy and data regulations, which require strict compliance and security protocols, differ around the world and change regularly. And, in today’s ultra-competitive environment, first impressions can make or break you. Identity verification has a significant impact on the customer experience, so the verification process must be quick and seamless.