1. What is KYC? Why is KYC important?

Know Your Customer (KYC) - Customer identification is a procedure to identify and verify the customer identity following what they have declared, ensuring its legitimacy and compliance with applicable laws and regulations.

KYC procedures are often applied at banks and financial institutions to assess and monitor risks, prevent fraud, and avoid money laundering, terrorist financing and illegal corruption programs.

This process includes complete checks in the early stages of business communication with the customer to verify that the customer is real by matching identity papers (ID card, driver license, etc.) and face throughout the customer presence.

2. Digital transformation from KYC to eKYC in the banking sector

In the context of strong digital transformation, financial institutions and banks gradually apply the eKYC process - online customer identification to improve competitiveness and attract customers. 

eKYC (electronic Know Your Customer) is based on the KYC process containing video calls and artificial intelligence technologies such as face-matching to match faces with photos on identity papers; character recognition (OCR) to read and extract information on documents, instantly compare personal information with a centralized database of user identities. Customers can perform the identification process anywhere via Video Call without going to the bank’s branch. 

eKYC helps businesses automate the information filling process, shorten customer authentication time and simplify the customer reception process. Therefore, it saves costs and brings satisfaction to customers.

Notes for eKYC implementation

In parallel with improving user experience, when implementing eKYC - online customer identification, banks and financial institutions need to pay more attention to building risk prevention and fraud and forgery control.

The eKYC process through selfies has potential problems such as customers using existing photos, editing and forging information, forging signatures, and not verifying customer existence.

Among the methods being applied, eKYC by Video Call has high reliability, is being applied at many banks around the world, and complies with the provisions of the Anti-Money Laundering (AML) or the Law on Anti-Money Laundering about electronic identity, authentication, and trust service (eIDAS).

eKYC via Video Call allows forgers to interact with users authentically, with the same reliability as traditional facial recognition and verification processes.

Thanks to the release of Video Call with eKYC, the new customer acquisition process witnessed a change from a cumbersome, time-consuming process to an optimized, safe and fast one. Customers can open an account online from anywhere without going to a branch. The waiting time is reduced from 3 weeks to 3 minutes while ensuring safety standards.

Besides choosing the eKYC method, companies and banks also need to choose reliable partners who are knowledgeable about eKYC operations in the business to give the most suitable advice.

Stringee is a reputable company providing eKYC solutions via Video Calls for businesses. The eKYC solutions Stringee is providing include:

✔ Video Call application: Employees exchange and communicate online with customers via videos, instructing operations to determine the identity (holding ID card, moving face, signing in front of staff via video call, etc.)

✔ Incorporating AI technology:

• OCR application helps to recognize characters of customer information on identity papers.
• Face Matching: Accurately recognize customer faces from video calls and documents.

✔ The video file is saved to the customer's profile to help prevent counterfeiting and compare errors.

✔ Quick integration into Mobile Apps is available.

With experience in implementing digital transformation solutions for major customers in the banking and financial sectors such as TPBank - Vietnam's leading digital bank, NCB Bank, and VNDIRECT Securities, Stringee is a reliable technology partner for your business.

Register for free consultation and demo of the eKYC solution from Stringee here.