Zoloz, an electronic Know Your Customer (e-KYC) technology provider, is riding on a wave of digital transformation in banking. With its financial-grade technology, Zoloz provides banks and financial institutions a more efficient off-the-shelf solution that greatly reduce complexity in identify verification and authentication processes.
“Banks around the world are increasingly using electronic Know Your Customer (e-KYC) technology to authenticate customers accessing their service, the technology is opening a new chapter in the digital banking boom”, Chen Jidong, general manager of Zoloz told PingWest.
Zoloz’s e-KYC system employs advanced biometrics technologies, including facial recognition and optical character recognition, it requires only a smartphone and an ID-offering user an easy way to complete the entire verification process from within the Zoloz’s app.
The e-KYC system allows users to open their mobile devices, logs into an application and verify an online payment transaction just by looking at their phone.
e-KYC can improve the whole authentication process by eliminating paper-based procedures, which reduces cost and time spent on verification. With online verification, customers who are unbanked, can open new accounts, make a deposit, apply for loans online or invest in a financial product only through smartphones,” Chen Jidong told PingWest.
Traditional methods have been using paper-based identity documents and photo ID cards to authenticate customers. However, it is easy for fraudsters to use forged materials to get around the authentication. In comparison, Zolloz’s eKYC’s security technologies authenticate customers by using individuals’ unique biometric features to replace passwords and other traditional methods of identification, making the whole process much safer.” Chen added.
“Our eKYC technology is highly accurate, easy to use, and mitigate risks and fraud. It offers up to 99.99 percent accuracy can also recognize the difference between a real person and an image or video, so it becomes near impossible to steal someone else’s identity,” Chen Jidong said.
According to the company’s official website, Zoloz leverages Ant Financials’ expertise in biometrics authentication and offers three main products-Zoloz Real ID, Zoloz Connect and Zoloz Smile to its financial client. Among them, ZOLOZ Real ID provides a digital alternative to in-person real name verification and KYC solution. Using facial recognition, anti-spoofing technology and advanced optical character recognition (OCR), people can validate their identities using a smartphone’s front-facing camera, coupled with either an ID number or a scan of an official ID.
Zoloz has formed business partnerships, especially in the Asia-Pacific region in countries including South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Due to large number of unbanked and underbanked population, Southeast Asia has significant demands for e-KYC solutions, and thus is a key market for Zoloz to expand its business.
A growing number of Southeast Asia countries are either implementing e-KYC or coming up with policies to support its use, some central banks in the region are beginning to allow financial institutions to use biometric e-KYC technology to identify and authenticate their customers, in order to boost the growth of the digital economy in those countries.
The Southeast Asia region has more than 650 million people, of which the top 3 markets are Indonesia (261.1 million), the Philippines (103.3 million) and Vietnam (92.7 million). With a huge population of young, savvy smartphone users, Indonesia has become the leading technology hubs in Southeast Asia, so it is no surprise that Indonesia boasts significant potential for Zoloz.
Despite immense market potential and a huge population of young mobile users in Indonesia, significant challenges and impediments to growth still remain. Similar to the Philippines and Bangladesh, Indonesia lacks in internet infrastructure, and therefore the lack of digital payment security technology has been one of the challenges to grow the country’s digital economy. To help overcome this challenge, Zoloz has partnered with Dana, a major Indonesia e-wallet provider, to develop e-wallet security technology that allows a more secure and easily accessible digital security experience for users, so that even the unbanked and the underbanked customers can gain access to inclusive financial services which will unlock more development opportunities for them. Our e-KYC solution offer convenience while greatly reduces the risk of identity theft as Dana’s user can verify and authenticate their identify in their e-wallet account by scanning their photo ID, it can simply complete the whole procedure without having to step into a bank branch,” Chen Jidong said.
In addition to Indonesia market, Chen Ji Dong said that Zoloz’s technology has been trusted by a large number of banks and financial institutions in Southeast Asia countries. For example, Zoloz recently partnered with TrueMoney in Thailand to develop security technology for e-wallet.
We are technology-driven company, so we will continue to invest heavily in R&D for key technologies in the future,” Chen Jidong added.