Periodic Reporting for period 2 - BlockchainKYC (Blockchain-based, 100% automated KYC (Know Your Customer) service)
Reporting period: 2020-02-01 to 2020-12-31
Online identity (ID) theft/fraud due to database breaches, phishing, or malware is a global issue with costs exceeding €10 billion every year. Online businesses shield themselves from stolen/ fraudulent IDs by using authentication methods where the only goal is to verify the users’ identity. However, there is no standardization of the authentication methods. It is recognized that most of the authentication procedures currently in use are not secure, putting at risk of attack the huge amounts of sensitive information that Organizations collect and store unproperly to perform ID validations. Since the advent of the Internet, companies have collected, managed, and claimed ownership of their customer’s digital identities and personal data - through authentication methods where the only goal is to verify the identity (ID) of the user. There are billions of users of Internet services,s and the biggest reason for the success of online services is simplicity and accessibility from anywhere. Authentication is part of most online services. Its use is growing rapidly due to the value of connectivity and ease of use afforded by the internet to every business domain. However, access to online services has grown substantially without a standardized and secure way of identifying people or organizations. Thus, online services began offering their own local accounts with usernames and passwords, which has been the predominant solution ever since. Whereas most people use their government-issued ID (hereafter Gov-ID) very sparsely, typically less than once a day, in the mobile world we are currently living in, Users need to make proof of their identity digitally several times a day, every day, as the key to simple, convenient and tentatively secure online transactions.
Blockchain KYC will have a valuable economic impact on various companies that need/wish to know their customers before doing business with them. However, the economic benefits are not restricted to the companies involved. Fraud and identity theft prevention will be hallmarks once Authenteq KYC is widely adopted for the initial onboarding of new online users. Payment fraud is a billion-dollar business, representing a 1.44€ Bn/year opportunity for fraudsters only in the EU. Consequently, this money may fund illicit activities that damage our society, such as money laundering for terrorism, drug trade, and human trafficking. Authenteq KYC is well aligned with the EU Directives to prevent money laundering for criminal activities, secure payment services in international markets, provide secure networks for information systems, and combat fraud. Today, Authenteq KYC is life, and our customers cherish our speed of response and flexibility to tailor the service to their needs.
Blockchain KYC will have a valuable economic impact on various companies that need/wish to know their customers before doing business with them. However, the economic benefits are not restricted to the companies involved. Fraud and identity theft prevention will be hallmarks once Authenteq KYC is widely adopted for the initial onboarding of new online users. Payment fraud is a billion-dollar business, representing a 1.44€ Bn/year opportunity for fraudsters only in the EU. Consequently, this money may fund illicit activities that damage our society, such as money laundering for terrorism, drug trade, and human trafficking. Authenteq KYC is well aligned with the EU Directives to prevent money laundering for criminal activities, secure payment services in international markets, provide secure networks for information systems, and combat fraud. Today, Authenteq KYC is life, and our customers cherish our speed of response and flexibility to tailor the service to their needs.
One of the initial tasks that we have to undertake was scaling our servers and ensure that the entire system scales properly. As we can better scale, we increased the number of operations. We have implemented a notification system to monitor every critical item and send alarms when something is broken. This enables us to respond to real-time incidents to minimize any downtime of the system and automatically scale our server resources as needed. As we were getting good and increased our service traction, we implemented a new document scanner for worldwide passports, driver's licenses, and national ID coverage. We can currently read over 8000 different documents and verify users from over 200 countries. These actions allow us to be competitive all over the world.
Over the course of the last two years, we have seen a rising demand for our product. However, we also had to cope with the clients' many requirements to make our product easier to integrate. We added the full functionality of our Android app to the iOs platform. Currently, customers can integrate the various platform SDKs based on the SDK documentation we provide. During the second year of the project, we had to constantly improve our solutions to compete with the competition after we launched the product, which means we have added a bulk upload. We could target now big clients that require re-verification of the existing customers. We now include support additional, with this development, we support IDs that are not dual-written in Latin characters. With these new alphabets, our solution can be used by an additional ~1.9 billion people worldwide. Finally, we have added verification links, a solution that many customers requested of ours. All of our Partners and Customers will generate a unique verification URL they can send to their users. With Integration-free onboarding, customers are compliant and scaling in seconds, not days. We have fulfilled security requirements on the security side to make our system secure and compliant with the necessary obligations resulting from GDPR implementations. We have also completed stage one of the ISO 27001 Audit; the second stage of the audit is scheduled for Q1 2021.
Our Sales team was getting valuable feedback from customers and the market during the development cycle. Last year in sales was hectic, and we have managed to close 35 clients in the last 6 months and significantly increase the revenue stream. The current COVID-19 pandemic situation and the increased need for automatic and not manual services, including automatic eKYC solutions, help us gain more market share. We are very confident with the changes we’ve made during the course of the project, and this is not only the opinion of the Authenteq team but also clients and media. We’ve been listed on numerous lists of leading KYC companies, been included in many studies and research by independent companies, and mentioned in the press by many of the leading tech media companies out there.
Over the course of the last two years, we have seen a rising demand for our product. However, we also had to cope with the clients' many requirements to make our product easier to integrate. We added the full functionality of our Android app to the iOs platform. Currently, customers can integrate the various platform SDKs based on the SDK documentation we provide. During the second year of the project, we had to constantly improve our solutions to compete with the competition after we launched the product, which means we have added a bulk upload. We could target now big clients that require re-verification of the existing customers. We now include support additional, with this development, we support IDs that are not dual-written in Latin characters. With these new alphabets, our solution can be used by an additional ~1.9 billion people worldwide. Finally, we have added verification links, a solution that many customers requested of ours. All of our Partners and Customers will generate a unique verification URL they can send to their users. With Integration-free onboarding, customers are compliant and scaling in seconds, not days. We have fulfilled security requirements on the security side to make our system secure and compliant with the necessary obligations resulting from GDPR implementations. We have also completed stage one of the ISO 27001 Audit; the second stage of the audit is scheduled for Q1 2021.
Our Sales team was getting valuable feedback from customers and the market during the development cycle. Last year in sales was hectic, and we have managed to close 35 clients in the last 6 months and significantly increase the revenue stream. The current COVID-19 pandemic situation and the increased need for automatic and not manual services, including automatic eKYC solutions, help us gain more market share. We are very confident with the changes we’ve made during the course of the project, and this is not only the opinion of the Authenteq team but also clients and media. We’ve been listed on numerous lists of leading KYC companies, been included in many studies and research by independent companies, and mentioned in the press by many of the leading tech media companies out there.
The goal of a 100% automated Identity verification process and accompanying sub-3 second authentication process is an ambitious one. The socio-economic impact of fraud costing companies and individuals hundreds of millions the current need for people to go to a physical location and having high salary staff (often bank employees) do a manual identity verification is a waste of time and resources that can be severally cut down with a reliable Identity Verification and KYC process. The companies that have used our service have been able to cut down costs and according to studies, the cost of bank-level KYC is in the millions of euros for each bank - with this being drastically reduced using an automated solution.
The state of the art is always pushing the envelope further to make the process more seamless for the end-user and integrated into regular processes of various services. An example of this is optimizing photos were taken for facial recognition and minimizing FAR (False Acceptance Rates) and FRR (False Rejection Rates) for the benefit of everyone. One of the more complex aspects of remote identity verification are automated security checks and automated document spoofing. This is one area that we are focusing on and working on some solutions to be introduced in the future.
The ultimate goal is to make Identity Verification and KYC mainstream and the go-to solution when dealing with people on the internet to make online communications and commerce more transparent and trustworthy. Due to the sensitive nature of the industry, we can’t go into more detail in a public report.
The state of the art is always pushing the envelope further to make the process more seamless for the end-user and integrated into regular processes of various services. An example of this is optimizing photos were taken for facial recognition and minimizing FAR (False Acceptance Rates) and FRR (False Rejection Rates) for the benefit of everyone. One of the more complex aspects of remote identity verification are automated security checks and automated document spoofing. This is one area that we are focusing on and working on some solutions to be introduced in the future.
The ultimate goal is to make Identity Verification and KYC mainstream and the go-to solution when dealing with people on the internet to make online communications and commerce more transparent and trustworthy. Due to the sensitive nature of the industry, we can’t go into more detail in a public report.