You may have come across the term e-KYC in the news lately. By removing paper-based procedures, e-KYC (electronic know your customer) can help enhance the entire identity authentication process, which reduces costs and time spent on customer identity authentication while complying to the due diligence.
Unbanked customers can open new accounts, make a payment, apply for loans digitally or even invest in a financial instrument with just a few clicks on their smartphones and online self-service verification. This enhances the customer experience journey for a digitally savvy consumer based.
Verifying customers by using paper-based identification and photo ID cards has its drawbacks. Identity verification by human eyeballing is time-consuming as it requires humans to manually read through the documents and verify pictures against identification documents, just imagine how many applications that need verification in a day!
In contrast, eKYC solutions that authenticate customers by using advanced technology such as Artificial Intelligence and machine learning simplifies the identity verification process. The identity verification process only takes a minute or so, making the entire process real-time to customer outreach.
Southeast Asia surges towards e-KYC
As financial institutions aim to grow their customer bases while preventing fraud, many companies in the Southeast Asian region have also made announcements related to biometrics programmes, deals, as well as awards for technology supporting financial services.
Countries with large populations like Indonesia and the Philippines, are huge archipelagic countries. The strategic location makes financial services conventionally only in urbanized areas. Integrating eKYC solutions makes it more cost effective to drive a financial inclusion agenda, with the simplifying business process and avoiding security risks.
Since the global pandemic COVID-19 outbreak, many businesses realize the fact that physical outreach may not be a suitable permanent solution for customer acquisition, as the pandemic has brought fear to contact-based biometrics systems, such as fingerprint scanners.
BFSI industry moves towards digital experiences
When talking about digital customer onboarding progress in Malaysia, you may have come across this international remittance, Valyou that offers a fully digital onboarding experience. Valyou is licensed by the Central Bank of Malaysia under the Money Services Business (MSB). With the eKYC solution implemented in their apps, it enables foreign worker communities to create their account without having to go through face to face counter service.
In traditional ways, those who work in remotely located estates or plantations would have to go through about an hour or so to travel to the nearest town. Not only will it increase customer’s acquisition and retention, but it also drives a seamless customer journey. Ultimately, a more cost-effective remittance fee made possible by advanced technology.
