Alloy and Prove, vendors of different components within identity verification systems, have joined forces to offer enhanced identity verification solutions for banks and fintech firms.
“Digital identity is broken”, Mary Ann Miller, vp of client experience at Prove, told Tearsheet last month. She argued that the way forward in developing an effective identity verification system was to incorporate identity proofing into the user onboarding flow. Fast forward a few weeks and we find Prove and Alloy announcing a collaboration focused on doing just that — enhancing identity verification at onboarding.
Alloy provides an Identity Decisioning Platform that enables financial firms to use data — such as identity document verification, watchlist screening, or email addresses — from 120 traditional and alternative data sources to automate decisions on an applicant’s identity. These decisions may be regarding identity verification, fraud prevention, or credit underwriting.
Prove allows firms to establish user identity using handheld devices. Prove’s tech does two things: authenticate user identity, and create verifiable pre-fill data for registration. Its solution uses multiple phases of verification via mobile phone to arrive at a pre-fill of a consumer's information. This data is secured by verifying against data from authoritative sources, and once saved, speeds up future form-filling processes. For users, a fast process makes it easier to sign up for a service, and for businesses, it boosts digital acquisition.
With the new collaboration, Prove will act as a data partner that is fully integrated into Alloy’s Identity Decisioning Platform. The integration covers two of Prove’s core offerings — Identity Pro and Pre-Fill. The Pre-Fill onboarding solution should expedite customer account opening for Alloy’s clients while mitigating fraud, as it combines easier registration for customers with automatic verification for firms.
Prove and Alloy’s networks will be connected to provide the latter access to the former’s data. Alloy will orchestrate all the provided data categories — combined with its own data categories — to offer its clients an end-to-end decision-making workflow. This workflow begins when a customer signs up, and continues throughout their experience as they use different features, like credit applications.
Brian Bender, vp of strategic alliances at Alloy, says he views the partnership as a natural alliance between two compatible businesses. This is because part of Alloy’s vision as a firm is to create a more accessible financial service industry, he told Tearsheet. Prove’s Pre-Fill product supports that vision by enabling an easier account opening experience.
“Alloy’s integration with Prove allows for an expedited account opening process, ultimately improving the customer experience by saving them time. Simultaneously, this helps financial institutions avoid application drop-off, allowing them to approve more good customers while reducing fraud and risk,” he said.
In the latter half of 2021, Alloy launched transaction monitoring and credit underwriting to work alongside its active onboarding product. This year, while the firm continues to beef up its products, the focus will be on building up its network of partners.
“We plan to continue expanding our partner network, which includes our technology partners and data partners. The data partners that we plan to integrate with will bolster our credit underwriting product by providing traditional, alternative, and international credit data in addition to enhancing our onboarding product,” Bender said.
2022 is proving to be an inflection point for digital identity, according to Nancy Yates, head of partnerships, Americas at Prove. She argues that the rising consumer demand for digital experiences has given way to higher incidences of fraud across every sector, from banking to retail to healthcare. She says there’s work to be done in the space, and it begins with educating the customer.
More fundamentally, however, Yates believes there is a need for companies to move beyond the belief that identity can be established by behavior, because behavioral data is unreliable.
“Behavioral information (e.g. did someone log in from a different location? Did they log in at an odd time of day or time zone?) is no longer reliable, particularly post-pandemic. We’re encouraging our customers to focus on cryptography and a phone-centric approach to identity verification,” Yates told Tearsheet.