Prior to the current digital shift of the world, before the time of high-speed internet, smartphones, or even as recently as the rise of the pandemic, financial, automobile, and other industries relied on in-person document verification. This manual approach posed a range of disadvantages as it was time-consuming and prone to human error, deterring customers due to complicated onboarding processes. Today’s customers expect efficiency when interacting with businesses, which is why many have made the switch to digital document verification. Now businesses can validate consumer information in an instant, meeting user expectations while still effectively protecting their company against fraud.
Manual verification: the opportunities for fraudsters
Document fraud can occur in various different ways with fraudsters presenting forgeries, counterfeits, pseudo documents, and other fakes. Not to mention, there are a multitude of different documents that can be presented from around the world, each with their own security features. This presents a real threat to industries, such as the car rental and lease industries, that deal with foreign documents regularly. Each of these fraudulent documents requires specific methods of detection in order to prevent them from slipping through the cracks. Businesses that employ manual processes are more susceptible to these threats as visual authentication has the factor of human error. While the trained eye may be able to identify a few obvious fakes, there is still the risk of missing something as inconspicuous as an out-of-place line. Acknowledging this, businesses would find it in their best interest to utilise intelligent digital document recognition software solutions that support over 3500 official documents, in multiple languages, from various countries.
Manual verification: the opportunities for fraudsters
Digital verification is the easiest way to verify customer documents. The customer will provide their documents either online or in person, and using sophisticated Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology, significant customer and document attributes can be extracted and authenticated. The cutting-edge software heightens the image quality to ensure accuracy when determining authenticity. Over 3500 different types of official documents, in multiple languages, from various countries are supported. Customers and businesses alike benefit from the digital process as it occurs in real-time, offering reliable results in under a minute. This creates low-friction onboarding, heightening the customer experience and preventing fraud. The type of documents digitally verified include South African and foreign IDs, passports, driver’s licences and work permits. Pairing digital document verification with other enhanced automated processes, such as facial verification, is a highly effective way of eliminating fraud.
Industries benefiting from the digital approach
Every industry can benefit from the digital approach, but some may find it more advantageous than others. As mentioned before, the car rental and lease industries frequently deal with foreign documents. This can become incredibly difficult for an individual to perform accurate document checks, especially when dealing with several national and international documents a day, each with their own specialized security features. Thankfully, these car rental businesses have the help of digital document verification, allowing them to
authenticate local and foreign documents quickly and accurately, preventing their vehicles from being released to fraudulent individuals.
Many other industries also benefit from digital verification. Those in the financial sector, such as banks, insurers, and credit unions, frequently deal with consumer documents and would benefit from digital verification accuracy due to their heightened exposure to fraud. The retail sector can also benefit, especially those providing credit facilities. The hospitality and real estate industries are also examples of businesses that benefit from the digital approach. Though, regardless of the industry, businesses across the globe can take advantage of the security, accuracy, and convenience that digital document verification provides.
User experience vs. fraud protection
As a business, you want to ensure that your business is protected against fraud risk, but you don’t want to discourage genuine customers from using your products or services. Through the manual document verification approach, oftentimes businesses are forced to favour either user experience or fraud protection due to laborious procedures, but this is no longer the case. The current document verification technology allows companies to maintain their competitive edge by eliminating the need to compromise on one or the other, and allowing for an accelerated onboarding experience. The software gives businesses the opportunity to strike a balance between each aspect, allowing businesses to offer fantastic experiences while maintaining their security. Businesses can now put customer documents through hundreds of validation checks in a matter of seconds, confirming their document’s authenticity. On top of that, all of this can be done completely remotely, meaning that customers don’t need to be physically present anymore while the digital
document verification processes are performed.
