Ashley Nelson
Running a business in 2022 presents a number of unique challenges. After all, the global pandemic completely disrupted the way that the vast majority of businesses operate. It led to a massive growth in online services, with a number of companies moving their services online as a result.
Today, business owners are facing new challenges on a daily basis as they endeavor to build trust in an increasingly digital world. In order for a business to trust its customers, it first needs to identify them and verify that they are who they’re claiming to be. For this to happen, a business must employ the use of an identity verification system. But, how do you choose the right identity verification system for your needs?
Well, to help you discover more about the benefits of identity verification, here we’ll show you the benefits that online identity verification services can provide. To do this, we’ll take a deep-dive into the products offered by Veriff and Persona.
Overview: why identity verification is so important
Customers and businesses alike must both build a platform for trust. While customers must trust companies to keep their information safe, businesses must also make sure that their customers are exactly who they’re claiming to be.
The solution to this trust problem is clear: people must verify themselves online before they use a new service or access sensitive information. Identity verification software is perfect for this purpose.
As well as providing a clear benefit to customers and businesses, identity verification is particularly useful because the process is quick and painless for customers.
When a customer needs to get verified, they go through what’s known as a ‘verification flow’. Generally speaking, this verification flow involves a customer going through the following process:
- The user will say which type of document they’d like to supply in order to confirm their identity (this is usually a passport, a driver’s license, an ID card, or a residence permit)
- They take a picture of this document and upload it to the system
- The user then takes a selfie to prove that their face matches the image on the document
- Once their selfie is submitted, they’ll receive instant feedback on whether their identity has been successfully verified. If so, they can use the service immediately
What does Veriff do?
Veriff aims to connect companies with honest people. The company believes that one day the world will be ready for a single digital identity that transcends borders and gives people rightful ownership of their data. Until then, their identity verification flows are designed to nip fraud in the bud. Thanks to the comprehensiveness of their offering, no device, browser, market, or language is left behind.
Founded in 2015, the company grew quickly and gained global attention in 2018, when it joined the Y Combinator spring batch. Today, it has over 500 employees, serves more than 190 companies and acts as the gold standard for online identity verification.
The company offers several products. As well as its Identity Verification Platform, it also provides Biometric Authentication solutions and Assisted Image Capture, which is an active photo assistant. This assesses verifications in real-time and guides users when taking every photo. It displays a message if there is a problem when taking a picture and guarantees sharp, well-lit images. This ultimately leads to an average first-time pass rate of 95%.
What does Persona do?
Persona aims to humanize online identity by helping companies verify that their users are exactly who they say they are. The company is striving to create a people-first approach to identity by allowing its customers to customize the way that they verify their users. From crafting user flows to automating decisions, everything is within a customer’s control.
Veriff vs Persona: solutions and capabilities
Veriff and Persona both cover the most crucial parts of an identity verification service - they offer compliance with ‘Know Your Customer' (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations and extensive fraud prevention services.
Veriff's fraud prevention methods in particular deserve further attention. This is because their ability to crosslink verification data helps to stop fraudsters in ways that other providers cannot. When a verification happens, Veriff does not treat it as a blank slate. Instead, their automated decision engine looks at previous data points, along with what's happening live during the verification. This way, an educated decision can be made on whether to approve or reject the user. This is crucial in stopping repeat offenders.
Keeping customers secure and building a trusting relationship with them is crucial for businesses to grow. So, while AML & KYC compliance are both key, speed also needs to be factored in. This is where automation plays a key role. Veriff’s highly-automated decision engine delivers verification decisions within 6 seconds (on average), and their document checks are now 98% automated. This makes verifications feel frictionless for users.
Similarly, the product’s verification flow gathers user data for analysis during the verification session. Clients can configure their decision engine to fit their precise needs, factoring in necessary speed of use and fraud prevention.
Similarly, Persona’s identity verification solution allows businesses to customize the way they verify their customers. According to the company’s website, a business can choose the building blocks they need to create the ideal identity verification experience. Much like Veriff’s solution, this means that Persona customers can craft user flows and receive automated decisions.
On top of this, both companies provide global coverage. While Veriff’s solution covers 12,000+ government-issued IDs from more than 230 countries and territories and 40 languages, Persona’s coverage spans across 200+ countries and territories, and is available in 20 different languages.
Veriff vs Persona: pricing and costs
Veriff offers two pricing plans: Starter Plans and Enterprise Plans.
The company’s starter plans are aimed at those who need less than 1,000 verifications per month. Overall, three types of Starter Plan are available:
- Essential plans - $1.49 per verification
- Plus - $1.89 per verification
- Premium - $2.05 per verification
On top of this, customers can upgrade their verifications to include additional data extraction, PEP and sanctions checks, and ongoing monitoring. There’s a calculator on Veriff’s site where you can calculate exactly how much your verification process will cost. All prices include a 30-day free trial.
If you require more than 1,000 verifications per month, then Veriff’s Enterprise Plans are likely to be the perfect solution for you. These come with all Starter Plan features, as well as configurable flow and decision engines, dedicated strategic account management, and branded and white-label flows. You can contact Veriff for more information about their Enterprise Plans and they’ll work with you to build the perfect identity verification solution for your specific needs.
By contrast, Persona offers three different pricing structures. These include a free Starter account that offers 500 free government ID and selfie verifications per month and a dashboard where verifications can be viewed and managed.
On top of this, Growth and Enterprise options are also available for businesses that require more than 500 verifications each month. The Growth plan also includes a full suite of verification checks and fraud tools, as well as access to watchlists, sanctions, adverse media reports, and more.
With the Enterprise plan, users can partner with Persona to build fully bespoke identity programs for KYC/AML, fraud, trust and safety, and more. Businesses who choose this plan will also receive custom pricing structures.
While the Starter plans are free for the first 500 verifications, the verifications themselves are limited and basic. Pricing information is not available for the Growth and Enterprise plans, and customers must contact Persona to discuss pricing.
Benefits of Veriff
Although Persona’s solution is comprehensive, Veriff remains the gold standard for online identity verification. This is because, when you partner with Veriff, you’ll receive 20% reduction in fraud risk with payback in under 6 months.
On top of this, Veriff’s solution makes it easy for honest people to become your customers. The company’s Assisted Image Capture product helps improve conversion rates, and customers are verified in as little as six seconds.
As a leader in automating identity verification and identity document coverage, Veriff provides:
- 98% check automation rate (they’re also the first identity verification service to offer this number)
- Instant verification
- First-try verification rate of 95%
- Support for over 12,000 government-issued documents from 230 countries and territories
- Compliance with AML and KYC regulations
What customers are saying about Veriff
From looking at reviews, it’s clear that Veriff’s identity verification services are helping their customers improve performance.
For example, the CIO of Uphold states that the company uses Veriff’s services for onboarding. They also added that the quality of verifications has improved since partnering with Veriff: “Before choosing Veriff, and as a part of proof of value, we did an A/B test - half of our customers were going through this competitor and half through Veriff. Afterwards we ran an analysis to compare how many false-positives we were getting between the two solutions and Veriff was so much better than the competitor.”
Similarly, further reviews have backed this view that Veriff’s solutions are market-leading. According to the General Manager of Blockchain, Xen Baynham-Herd - “Veriff's technology is world-class, and they've been an even better partner.”
Schedule a demo of the Veriff platform today
Are you interested in learning more about how Veriff’s identity verification solutions can help your business? Well, get in touch with the team today to schedule a personalized demo that shows exactly what Veriff can do for you.
Alternatively, if you’d like to learn even more about exactly why Veriff’s solutions are the gold standard in the industry, read our in-depth reviews of Veriff vs Onfido and Veriff vs Jumio.
