Signicat launches Open Banking Hub for global Bank Account Verification and Affordability Check

Signicat’s Open Banking Hub with account and affordability checks is now available alongside identity data from over 35 digital identity schemes and over 200 remote identity verification methods to protect businesses from fraud and data quality issues.

London, 1^stof October 2024 - Signicat, the pan-European leader in digital identity, launches its Open Banking Hub. In addition to Signicat’s extensive suite of remote identity verification methods, the Open Banking Hub responds to organisations' need to perform consented, reliable and secure methods to prove a person’s personal information.

Designed as a secure and consensual way of verifying someone's personal information via their bank account, Signicat's Open Banking Hub offers broader identity verification options to consumers, while more security for businesses when verifying ownership of a bank account, affordability or account information. The process verifies that a person possesses a bank account and its legitimacy, offering the integrity of data like the name and bank account of the holder of the account.

A bank account verification check, either alone or with an identity or affordability check, helps businesses comply with AML regulations, improve data quality at customer onboarding and responsible lending. It is also a strong tool to prevent erroneous payments and invoice fraud in all sectors.

“When conducting business digitally, companies experience different types of fraud and data quality issues. This is mainly because they cannot easily verify bank accounts in relation to identities in the early stages of a contractual relationship. The methods currently used consist of uploading bank statements or copies of bank cards, which present many technical difficulties, create unnecessary user friction, and provide more information than necessary”, says Pinar Alpay, Chief Product & Marketing Officer at Signicat. “Affordability checks are often costly, cumbersome, and slow and might not be a process that BankID or digital identity schemes cover. Signicat’s Open Banking Hub directly addresses these challenges to rely on the existing data of a bank account, reducing risk and increasing efficiencies. It further underlines our commitment to innovation and expanding the capabilities of our digital identity platform” she adds.

Open Banking allows permissioned access to personal information held by banks. Signicat’s Open Banking Hub leverages this technology to enable companies to verify the existence and veracity of a bank account, connect directly to their customer’s bank accounts to verify their identities through their account information as well as perform affordability checks and credit scoring.

“Open Banking is not only for regulated companies that need to verify the reliability of a bank account, it has many different use cases. We offer more convenient identity verification methods depending on the needs a company may have. From high-level of assurance needs like verifying a bank account before a pay-out or preventing social benefit fraud by checking a bank account is in the name of a beneficiary, to low-level of assurance to onboard new employees and have the correct bank account number on the system. Our Open Banking Hub adapts to any use case and need, and can be combined with any identification method or information source already on our platform” says Allard Keuter, Tribe Lead Authentication at Signicat.

Signicat’s Open Banking Hub ensures seamless identity verification and enables different use cases for Fintechs, companies from the financial sector, insurances, public sector organizations, and many others. Available as an API and as part of its integrated solution for the entire digital identity lifecycle and giving companies access to over 15.000 bank and payment account providers in 22 countries.