Three Types Of Implementation

The significance of Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures cannot be emphasized in the quickly changing field of financial technology. Effective and safe KYC procedures are more important than ever as traditional banking systems give way to digital ones. One of the major technological developments that is helping with this shift is the use of Mobile Software Development Kits (SDKs) for KYC.

Once a bank or NBFC has decided to use online KYC verification methods to onboard customers, the next step is to choose how these verification methods are implemented.

Usually, there are three possible options for implementing online identity verification:

  • APIs:

    In this implementation, the organization (here, the bank or NBFC) collects the customer’s KYC information, including document images and pictures, and conveys them to the identification service provider who verifies the customer’s KYC and transmits the verification decision back to the organization. The organization entirely controls the customer’s experience.

  • Mobile/Desktop Web:

    The organization’s onboarding process is integrated with the KYC verification service using a web browser, accessible on both desktops and mobile phones.

  • Mobile SDKs:

    Here, the KYC verification service is packaged into a Software Development Kit (SDK) and integrated into a mobile application that can be used on mobile phones and tablets.

SignDesk‘s KYC verification solution

Is enabled with all of these implementations, and they’ve all got both pros and cons.

However, for Indian financial institutions trying to onboard customers in the current pandemic-fuelled scenario, mobile SDKs can prove to be the best of these implementations.

Here’s why.

Mobile SDKs for seamless and secure digital onboarding

Mobile SDKs offer banks and NBFCs several unique advantages when it comes to online KYC verification. Here are a few –

  • Increased penetration

Everyone’s got an internet-enabled phone these days, and this is all customers need to be verified by banks or NBFCs. By implementing mobile SDKs, financial institutions can massively increase their reach, dip into a larger customer pool, and open millions of accounts. Additionally, digital mobile identity verification can help banks reach more customers without physically interacting with them, thus ensuring everyone’s safety.

  • Higher rate of completions 

Studies have shown that KYC completion rates jump up by about 20% through mobile identity verification compared to other implementations. This is primarily because mobile apps afford a more seamless and intuitive onboarding workflow that smoothly takes the customer through the KYC verification process.

  • Better customer experience

A mobile SDK implementation is much more self-contained than an API-based or web-based implementation; mobile apps can set forth a straightforward onboarding and verification workflow that customers can follow easily and complete quickly. This makes for satisfied customers and better customer acquisition.

  • Improved data capture 

Mobile SDK implementations have the unique advantage of having access to a mobile phone’s built-in features. A camera phone is typically of a higher quality than those on laptops or tablets, possesses features that allow automatic focus, and can capture clear and crisp images due to the phone’s hardware functionalities. Thanks to all these features, our SDKs can select the images of the highest quality, automatically read and extract data from these images using OCR technology, and verify these data against standard government databases.

  • Faster verification

Mobile SDKs enable faster verification due to high-resolution images, faster data capture, and more intuitive user experience. Studies have shown that customers complete KYC verification 30% faster when using mobile SDKs compared to other implementations.

  • Reduced threats of fraud 

Video-based KYC methods are instrumental in reducing and preventing fraud. The prospect of exposing one’s face to a camera is likely to discourage any fraudster, and a liveliness check further deters any fraudulent activity. Our KYC solution uses ML techniques to match faces with pictures and filter out fake profiles, thus eliminating the threat of fraud.

  • Improved data extraction capabilities

Mobile phone cameras, as mentioned before, are capable of capturing high quality and high-resolution images. The superior quality of these images makes the job of OCR-enabled data extraction much easier, allowing for faster and more comprehensive verification.

  • Ease of accessibility 

Compared to KYC verification in person or on a desktop, mobile identity verification is somewhat less intimidating and more personal. This might come across as a soft-sell, but there’s definitely something to be said for the ease with which KYC verification can be accessed and completed on a device that you carry around on your person.

  • Easy integration 

mobile SDKs are flexible and can be integrated into any onboarding workflow without the assistance of third-party software. Our intrepid tech team provides documentation guides for implementation, and any help your organization might need to get the most out of our KYC verification solution. 

Mobile SDKs have their own set of advantages and disadvantages, and ultimately it’s up to the organization in question to decide which implementation suits them the best. But it isn’t easy to make a case against mobile identity verification.

Trusted and award-winning KYC verification

Assuming you’re convinced that mobile SDKs are the way to go when it comes to customer onboarding, which verification service provider should you choose?

Certainly, one that offers a seamless, intuitive, and fraud-free mobile SDK implementation, and that’s us!

Our KYC verification solution is in use by 50+ major banks and has been awarded the Global Banking and Finance Review’s Best Digital Onboarding Product of 2020 in India! 

We’ve helped our 350+ clients verify faster, cut onboarding costs by 90%, and boost customer acquisition using our ML and AI-enabled onboarding solution.

Curious to learn more about how we expedite onboarding? Book a demo with us now!