How e-kyc Can Help verify Digital Identity During (and after) Covid-19?

As the world and the global economy continues to react and respond to the ongoing coronavirus crisis, we can be sure that the post-corona world is not going to look the same as it did. While the constraint on logistics and restrictions in the movement have worsened the economic impact of Covid-19, they’ve also opened up new (and better) ways to operate. This is especially relevant for sectors like finance, IT, education, etc. With the right frameworks and technology in place, we can even expect an increase in onboarding more new users and more productivity & satisfaction for existing users. As an example, with technology by their side, many industries have been able to operate remotely in the middle of the pandemic:

• The education sector had to shift its focus completely to digital platforms. This turned, in fact, out to be a blessing-in-disguise for the Edtech and online learning segment of the education industry. Moreover, taking education to digital platforms has made much smarter changes for both the learners and the tutors.
• The IT sector, especially the BPO segment, took the lockdown in its stride and has been going strong with many businesses running on WFH-model across the world. Not only does technology form the backbone of this sector but also continues to strengthen business process security.

Customer onboarding is no stranger to remote operation. In fact, digital onboarding of customers (e-KYC) had already begun in various parts of the world long before Covid-19 forced the onboarding process to go online.

e-KYC: A Want or A Need

Before the pandemic, e-KYC was seen as an obvious next step in the evolution of KYC technology but probably not yet as an unavoidable need. The unprecedented turn of events, however, has forced a fundamental paradigm shift. But that’s not all. e-KYC has, in fact, turned out to be safer and smarter for businesses since it has the potential to:

• Eliminate Unnecessary Human Interaction: Since all the onboarding process is digital and remote, customers do not need to be physically present for the same and can share documents online. This is a huge relief in times like these where social distancing is the chief norm.
• Reduce Iterations: e-KYC removes the need for physical form-filling and signing by the customers and aids in an easy document share. This data can be reused for other digital forms as well, and any changes needed by the host service provider can be quickly done online without the need for packaging papers and sending them across via postal services every time.
• Increase efficiency: Online KYC can enhance business efficiency sufficiently by reducing operating costs on both ends (for the client and the business). Since physical presence is not required, a lot of time and money is saved on commuting, printing and posting. Needless to say, the lack of physical form-filling helps in drastically reducing the processing time as well (from several days to a few minutes).

Why e-KYC is the trend to look out for?

While e-KYC is already a big technological leap in itself, newer tech advancement can help to make it smarter and more efficient. Digitization has broadened the horizons by eliminating the need for physical availability on either end. Not only that, technology has opened many more possibilities as well.

• Services like instant account opening have been made possible with digital onboarding.
• Since e-KYC excludes the need for physical documentation (or dispatching of the same using courier), it makes the process much safer and faster.
• Instant verification using applications like Cove Identity can make e-signing much easier. The AI-based platform of Cove offers the highest level of trust for the customers since it utilizes decentralized encryption for secure Aadhar e-sign, bank account verification, PAN verification, email verification, phone verification all instantly & on-the-go while filling out the customer application form!
• e-KYC applications like Cove Identity can also safely integrate customer information with banks and depositories to simplify instant online verification and biometric authentication.

A Broader Vision for e-KYC

The time is perfect for customer onboarding to go fully online. Online KYC is a promising new way for many industries but these possibilities need to be harnessed in the right way. It offers much greater efficiency for document share and safety, but it can also help businesses expand their outreach beyond geographical limitations. There are great possibilities such as:

• Online onboarding processes along with appropriate marketing channels can let businesses target new geographies without spending on on-ground infrastructure and operations.
• Freedom from physical presence and logistics would save on time and money for the businesses and ensure the physical safety of the employees, clients, and business assets.

With the future holding so many unseen and even unimagined possibilities in customer onboarding, businesses will have to shift gears to go digital or go home. The recent global events have made a sudden shift in business needs and e-KYC is clearly one of those developments that need to be embraced faster and more widely.

Cove eKYC provides a revolutionary and 100% online experience to share documents online, enabling customer onboarding via its SAAS platform. From document submission to video-KYC, Cove’s AI-enabled platform provides safe and super-fast execution of onboarding processes using decentralized encryption.

Find out more about Cove Identity here.

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