Veriff is an industry leader in online identity verification, helping businesses achieve greater levels of trust. Pulse 2.0 interviewed Veriff CTO Hubert Behaghel to learn more about the company.
Hubert Behaghel’s Background
What is Hubert Behaghel’s background? Behaghel said:
“I completed my master’s degree in the French ‘Grandes Écoles’ and then went to work in the private banking industry. Later, I moved to the UK to work for Amazon, where I ran the systems that manage the catalog across all retail marketplaces. After working at Amazon, I worked as the first principal engineer at Sky. Until my time at Sky, I wavered between hands-on roles and engineering management positions. Looking back, I often feel I was born to be both a leader and an engineer. At Sky, I made the final switch to the leadership track and led the team that would introduce machine learning into the heart of the Sky experience and help build a transformative real-time data platform.”
“I lead our Product and Engineering division, ensuring Veriff’s product and engineering strategy supports its growth and innovation. Today, I am tasked with balancing two objectives: enabling the business’s long-term vision while balancing the short-term goals that keep the lights on.”
“To achieve these objectives, I am responsible for enabling my teams with the necessary tooling, autonomy, and data to innovate and solve problems effectively. My job is to ensure that my teams can iterate and refine our approaches.”
“Lastly, there is only one way to do engineering well: in a product-led fashion. I am empowered to drive this approach and communicate and collaborate with senior leadership, the revenue team, and the legal and compliance departments to ensure we are always aligned with customer expectations and market demands.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Behaghel explained:
“Veriff’s core identity verification (IDV) platform leverages AI to prevent online identity fraud. Veriff’s IDV solution combines AI-powered automation with reinforced learning from human feedback, deep insights, and expertise, in addition to manual oversight if required. Its proven verification engine analyzes more than 1,000 data points, including the person’s identity document, biometric information, session liveness checks, and device and network information. With a proven AI-powered platform that uniquely enables organizations to verify their users’ identity, Veriff is building an infrastructure for trust in online transactions for businesses and consumers – from onboarding to authentication and account recovery.”
“Additionally, Veriff’s IDV platform includes advanced features such as fully automated biometric authentication for returning users, age validation enabling businesses to seamlessly confirm whether or not users are above a minimum age threshold, and robust KYC (Know Your Customer) onboarding with optional (AML) anti-money laundering checks.”
Challenges Faced
What are some of the biggest challenges Veriff’s customers face today? Behaghel acknowledged:
“One challenge is that fraudulent activity is increasing worldwide and infiltrating new, untouched sectors. Veriff’s latest fraud report found that overall fraud incidents are up by 20% compared to previous year’s findings. As fraudsters gain access to more advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence, businesses will require new, innovative technologies to identify and stop identity fraud. Otherwise, we risk undermining trust in the business-to-client relationship.”
“Second, we don’t know who is on the other side of the screen on most platforms. Users are bogged down by an overabundance of passwords and emails across various digital platforms. With so many options, it’s increasingly troublesome to determine which credentials to use and how to use them securely.”
“Third, every company possesses a distinct notion of how to verify and manage the identities of its customers – each individual is unique and presents its own set of specific challenges. There are also the delicate requirements involved in handling a customer’s personal information and individual identity. What surprises me most is that given these challenges, identity verification (IDV) often doesn’t enter the application or product strategy conversation until a critical juncture, like identity theft or credit card or insurance fraud, leaving the business to engage in a reactionary mode that often results in mitigating the attack and retrofitting the product to prevent against future attacks.”
“Finally, regulatory requirements to verify the identity of users before provisioning services online. This could include issuing credit or selling products only suitable for adults.”
Solving Customer Challenges
How is Veriff solving those customers’ challenges? Behaghel replied:
“Veriff is a product-led company, and we engage the market and our customers digitally and with a high level of trust. However, customers often approach us and want to define their problem statement. So, we need to calibrate the relationship—we need to align our approach with their specific needs and expectations. With this in mind, we’re delivering a multi-product, scalable solution to empower customers with the necessary tools to future-proof their offerings from fraud and identity-driven attacks.”
“Veriff is on a mission to create a digital ecosystem that goes beyond unique needs within the online platform to foster trust and convenience at scale – ultimately, meaning a solution where you don’t have to create a unique password for each online account across platforms. Evolving this concept safely can become the lowest bar of entry for digital platforms globally.”
“Veriff provides end-users a seamless user experience when verifying their identity online. This coupled with state-of-the-art AI to keep bad actors out, Veriff promises online businesses, peace of mind, and excellent user conversion.”
Customer Success Stories
When asking Behaghel about customer success stories, Behaghel highlighted:
“Deel, a global payroll and compliance provider, has used Veriff for more than three years. As part of its offering to businesses, Deel needed to conduct Know Your Customer (KYC) checks to verify the identity of employees being onboarded or paid by their clients and prevent fraud. Before Veriff, Deel completed these checks manually.”
“To enable Deel users across more than 15,000 businesses with a swift and secure verification process while automatically detecting manipulated or false documents to protect against fraudulent users, the company integrated Veriff’s technology into its all-in-one HR solution. With Veriff, Deel streamlined its onboarding process, resulting in immediate conversions and reduced fraud on its platform.”
Evolution Of Veriff’s Technology
How has the company’s technology evolved since launching? Behaghel noted:
“Veriff launched its flagship identity verification solution in 2016. In 2017, the company covered more than 30 countries and supported 10 languages. From there, Veriff acquired additional funding, expanded offices, and continued to build out the workforce, enabling greater growth in product development and innovation – which was needed to keep pace with unique customer challenges and an increase in fraud globally. For example, in 2021, Veriff increased verification volumes by more than eight times, and twenty times in the U.S. Likewise, as a result of growing digital transactions online resulting from the pandemic, Veriff’s volume in financial services verifications increased by 10-fold, securing its position as the main provider for 95% of its clients in that sector. “
“Between 2021 and 2022, Veriff rolled out numerous new, vital services for the platform, including Proof of Address, Biometric Authentication, and Social Security Number verification. Veriff’s Biometric Authentication solution is 100% automated and mitigates the risk of fraudsters taking over accounts, committing suspicious activities through continuous authentication, and securing high-risk activities.”
“At its core, the Veriff platform is 400+ mini products that can be combined into bigger products, covering deeply critical use-cases for our customers like KYC or age-limited item delivery, to name a few. What’s more, each of these products activates the same flywheel of accuracy and fraud detection while reducing costs and increasing customer satisfaction.”
“Today, Veriff is a true global verification provider offering services in 48 different languages as of this year. It has completed over a hundred million verifications globally and is well-positioned to secure the leading role in the large $20B+ and growing identity market.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates the company from its competition? Behaghel affirmed:
“Veriff’s IDV platform is supported by more than 11,500 document specimens from more than 230 countries and territories, empowering users with a seamless, speedy, and convenient way to grow their customer or client base, mitigate fraud, and comply with ever-evolving regulations. Veriff’s solution is 30x more accurate and 6x faster, offering convenience and reduced friction to convert more users, mitigate fraud, and comply with regulations. Additionally, the solution has robust and multi-point checks to mitigate fraud and non-compliance risks. It ensures that the correct checks are carried out and helps reduce risk to the business. Likewise, the IDV platform has a 98% automation rate, and 95% of genuine users are verified successfully on their first try.”
“And yet, the number one reason to choose Veriff according to our customers is the quality of the partnership. We take great pride in coming really close to our customers. We have among the best experts in the industry when it comes to fraud and identity. Lastly, the high degree of configurability of our technology allows us to adapt rapidly, sometimes in minutes to our customers’ needs.”
Future Company Goals
What are some of the company’s future company goals? Behaghel concluded:
“Moving toward identity verification (IDV) is key to satisfying customer expectations in today’s digitally-driven world. Veriff has emerged as a key player in the IDV market and is on its way to becoming the universal platform for identity verification for governments and businesses.”
“For additional next steps, we’re working on further developing our IDV solution to encompass more self-service and scalable capabilities. With regard to our biometric authentication solution, our customer base is growing, and we continue to focus on helping our customers prevent fraud and seamlessly onboard their users. Additionally, in my role, I am actively working to fine-tune our engineering “marketing,” with the goal of establishing a Veriff Engineering community that finds even more of its voice, both internally and externally.”
