Detected is a London-based fintech that provides automated global business onboarding. Detected’s completely unique technology is resetting expectations for business onboarding - evidenced in being accredited with global Visa Ready status.
Having taken ecommerce best practices and applied them to KYB, Detected has created an end-to-end process which shifts the focus to the business being onboarded. With Detected, businesses can confirm and provide data about itself in a smooth user journey, rather than compliance teams gathering that data on behalf of the business and then connecting to external systems to build a risk profile.
The result is a better experience for all involved, including those with an eye on the bottom line due to increased onboarding conversion. In addition, Detected allows payments businesses and banks to onboard businesses internationally in a single system. Configured flows per country or region ensure that local requirements aren’t ignored as a result of implementing a global strategy.
End to end, the onboarding process begins the moment a business wants to be onboarded. This is often neglected, with the focus for most compliance teams being the act of checking the information to ascertain whether the business is a pass or fail.
The typical onboarding process in KYB is as follows:
Business user signs up using a complex onboarding form. This varies across different businesses units or product offerings in large payments businesses, as well as geographically.
Manual Review/connect data to KYB platform. When the data is collected, it is often incomplete – worst still, inaccurate. Consequently, compliance teams often waste time on manual intervention and reviewing data.
Manually request more information. It is often necessary to contact a business and request additional information to complete risk profiling. This should be the exception, rather than the rule.
Review. Generally different information is held in different systems – for example ID checks and Credit information – often resulting in delays to the process while compliance teams manually search through different portals to review the relevant data.
Pass/fail. Finally, a decision is made.
The current process is in need of innovation – at the minimum, improvement. By only having connections to a variety of providers to fix specific elements, financial businesses are fixing for today – not preparing for tomorrow.
Our mantra is ‘simple, powered by complex’. By using complex proprietary algorithms, we have reduced the input needed from the businesses being onboarded and automated the creation of a profile for compliance teams to review, negating the need for the multi-step, manual compliance process that is currently in use.
Locating the verified government company record is the foundation of the overall Profile. Once this is located, additional information is added by the business as requested. By shifting the responsibility to the business being onboarded and requiring that they build their own profile, Detected overcomes the issue of global business data availability.
The results?
Decreased ‘onboarding churn’. One of the many questions we asked ourselves was how many businesses do not sign up because their onboarding experience is poor? We found that answer was a lot. Using the current process, in one case, churn was 60%+ because the onboarding experience was so inefficient. Detected has reduced that to less than 5%.
Reduced manual overhead. Recently, I spoke with a bank who had over 100 people in compliance in a business area that onboarded 1500 businesses per year. The bank needed this volume of people because so much time was spent manually chasing businesses for information to complete their business profiles. With the onus placed on the business to onboard themselves with Detected, this overhead can be reduced.
Improved brand equity. So often ignored, but the impact of not having an easy to use, branded onboarding flow is detrimental. Detected solves this problem.
I would outline three key points to consider:
Take the time to review your risk requirements. Do not review your existing onboarding process, instead review what information is necessary for you to collect in order to onboard businesses. It is very likely that you require less than you currently request.
Think global. Applying domestic processes to international onboarding is where unnecessary layers of complication exist.
Think about the ecommerce purchase experiences you enjoy most and try to make your onboarding experience as good as that. Onboarding should absolutely be a competitive advantage, not an afterthought.
Liam is a forthright entrepreneur known for his bold ideas and people-first leadership. Prior to Detected, Liam held senior roles at the likes eBay and Zalando via Anatwine. His most recent role was as Managing Director of Silicon Valley software company EasyPost in San Francisco.
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