What Is Digital Onboarding & Validation – and How Can it Protect You & Your Customers?

What do financial institutions, health care organizations, and property management firms all have in common?

They commonly need to onboard and validate customers using private, sensitive data. Whether you’re helping someone secure a personal loan or a business loan, signing up a doctor’s new patient, or attempting to approve new tenants for your rental – seamless onboarding and validation processes are at the core of what you do.

After all – you want to keep things as frictionless as possible for your clients so they know they made the right choice and don’t back out. But there’s a greater problem at play with traditional onboarding and validation processes: the risk of a data breach. With all that personal data stored in your database, you’re one breach away from compromising the identities and sensitive details of thousands – if not millions – of people.

As such, the onus is on you to create protection around your onboarding and validation processes. That’s where digital onboarding comes in.

Wait – what is digital onboarding?

As you’ll discover in this in-depth guide, when done correctly, it will transform the way you onboard and validate customers forever. No need to stress over potential data breaches tarnishing your reputation and creating huge liabilities. And as an end-user, you can enjoy peace of mind knowing your personal details are safe and sound.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this article:

• What is digital onboarding?
• What makes it different from traditional solutions?
• Who is digital onboarding for?
• How can you incorporate it into your processes?
• and much, much more.

As you can see, we’ve got a lot to cover. So, let’s not waste any more time.

What Is Digitial Onboarding?

To put it simply, digital onboarding is the process of authenticating an individual’s identity.  We add an important caveat: without storing any private data.

This might sound like a foreign concept if you’re used to traditional methods that require paper forms and in-person verification. But with digital onboarding – if done the right way – no sensitive information needs to ever be stored. 

This is made possible through the use of digital signatures, facial recognition, and other cutting-edge technologies and algorithms that are specific to the solution. 

In certain instances – like with financial service onboarding – there will be extra steps to the digital onboarding process. These fall under the scope of regulatory agencies like KYC and AML regulations.

What Are The Benefits Of Digital Onboarding?

Now that you know what digital onboarding is, and how to do it right, let’s take a look at some of the key benefits when done securely:

• Security & Privacy – As we just touched on, digital onboarding doesn’t require you to store any private data. So even if your systems are breached, there’s nothing for hackers to steal. This protects both you (from reputational damage and legal liabilities) and your customers (from identity theft).
• Seamless Customer Experience – Customers can complete digital onboarding from the comfort of their own homes using a computer or mobile device. There’s no need to visit a physical location or stand in line.
• Improved Accuracy – With digital onboarding, you can say goodbye to human error. Automated systems are more accurate and efficient, which leads to improved customer satisfaction. This also helps eliminate the occurrences of fraud.
• Reduced Costs – Digital onboarding is more cost-effective than traditional solutions since there’s no need for paper forms, ink, or toner. You’ll also save on staff costs since digital onboarding is largely automated.

We know that seeing all these benefits has you eager to start transforming your own internal processes. Not so fast, though – is this even something you can benefit from? Who is digital onboarding for? Let’s take a closer look.

Who Is Digital Onboarding For?

At its core, digital onboarding presents huge benefits for at least two sectors: financial lending, and property rentals. The use cases can be broken down even further, as both personal lending and business lending can implement this improvement in their processes. To grant you further clarity, let’s dive deeper into who digital onboarding can help:

• Property managers looking to streamline their tenant onboarding processes
• Financial businesses that need to verify the identity of their clients
• Customers who want a more convenient way to validate their identity
• Anyone who has to onboard and validate someone using sensitive information

As you can see, digital onboarding done securely provides improvements for both businesses and customers alike. And we’re just scratching the surface – there are plenty more use cases out there.

Now that you know all about digital onboarding and who it’s for, let’s take a look at some real-world examples. We’ll explore how digital onboarding is being used by leading companies in various industries so you can get a better idea of what’s possible.

What Is Digital Onboarding Used For In The Real World: Use Cases & Examples

While digital onboarding is still a relatively new concept, there are already plenty of businesses that are using it to streamline their processes. Here are just a few examples:

• Airbnb uses digital onboarding to verify the identity of their hosts. This helps protect both the hosts and the guests from fraud and scams.
• WeWork uses digital onboarding for their members. This allows them to sign up for membership quickly and easily, without having to visit a physical location.
• CitiBank has implemented digital onboarding for their credit card application process. This makes it easier and faster for customers to apply for a credit card, with no need to visit a branch or wait in line.
• Cryptocurrency exchanges rely on these solutions to verify users.

As you can see, digital onboarding is being used by some of the biggest names in various industries. And there’s no doubt that we’ll see even more adoption in the future as businesses realize the benefits.

What Is The Best Digital Onboarding Solution?

When determining which digital onboarding solution works best for you, there are two options: build your own (in-house) or outsource to a vendor that has engineered one for you. Most businesses prefer the latter in an effort to keep their focus narrow on business goals, save money, and more importantly, get the best possible digital onboarding solution. 

Crucially, digital onboarding solutions vary in terms of the protection they provide and the customer experience they create. You need the best of both worlds – and that’s just exactly what we provide at FortifID. Here’s why:

• Security – As we mentioned before, digital onboarding is all about security and privacy. And with FortifID, you can rest assured knowing that your data is in good hands. Raw data stays in the hands of the customer – while algorithms travel to it, and return with only the resulting insights. This means personal data is never logged or stored in your system.
• Accuracy – Our system is highly accurate, which means you can avoid costly mistakes from fraud and improve customer satisfaction. Through our CoT (Circle of Trust),
• Ease Of Use – Our digital onboarding solution is easy to use for both you and your customers. There’s no need for paper forms or in-person visits. Everything can be done from a computer or mobile device. This creates the most frictionless customer experience possible.
• Cost-Effective – FortifID helps you reduce data handling and management costs while improving customer acquisition economics along the way. The end result is greater profitability for your operation.

With our products, you’re able to onboard, verify, and authenticate your customers while honoring their personal data protection rights. Here are just a few of the many ways we can help transform your digital onboarding processes:

• Online Identify Verification
• ID Verification
• Income Verification
• Employment Verification
• Business Verification

These are just a few of the insights we can offer you through our digital onboarding solution. If you want to learn more about what FortifID can do for you, reach out to us today and we’ll guide you through the system. We can’t wait to help you transform your onboarding and verification processes for the better.

What Is Digital Onboarding? Wrapping Things Up

As you can see, secure digital onboarding is not something you can afford to go without any longer. Banks, lenders, property managers, and even crypto exchanges are all making improvements to their processes – and you should too. This will reduce costs, improve customer experience, and most importantly, protect your customers’ sensitive data.

Whether you’re looking for bank account verification software, age verification system, or fraud verification – we can help. Find out more by exploring our site today.