Trulioo Expands Into Emerging Markets, Taps Into Mobile Data For AML/KYC

Trulioo, the identity verification network that partnered with Refinitiv in June to enhance the company’s anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer (AML/KYC) products, is tapping into emerging markets, as well as incorporating an interesting data set—that of mobile phones—to help identify individuals.

So far, Trulioo has loaded a variety of mobile network operators into its network in only a handful of markets. Traditional means of identification the network uses include credit bureau, government, consumer, and banking information, but Trulioo’s general manager, Zac Cohen, sees mobile data as one of the more interesting use cases, particularly in Southeast Asia, which interest for more detailed information is growing.

As an example of how the company uses the data, when a customer subscribes to a mobile carrier, that person shares personal information such as their name, address and phone number, and the carrier retains that data. When a consumer signs up for a new service—i.e., signing up for Venmo or PayPal—the cellphone provider will check their identity against a mobile carrier in the area that person has signed up from. From there, Trulioo leverages its connection to the carrier and verifies the individual’s identity in real-time.

• DEEP DIVE: KYC/AML requirements are only becoming more complex for a variety of reasons, not least of which is that there’s no standardization across jurisdictions, or even among regulators in the same market. But slowdowns in the onboarding process mean loss of money and increased reputational risk—and potentially hefty fines if it’s done poorly. Technology can help, but there is still a long way to go. Click here to read the full article.

Trulioo announced last week that its GlobalGateway API, a data hub that draws from more than 400 vetted sources, now has identification capabilities in Bahrain, Georgia, Iceland and Qatar, four countries that have received regulatory recommendations to strengthen their defenses against money laundering, terrorist financing and illegitimate funds. They are using those countries—in addition to the other countries they’ve already added—as a blueprint for expanding into Southeast Asia, which they view as being ripe for expansion. For the region, Trulioo currently verifies identities in Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand, and plans to expand mobile network operator data accessibility to other developing markets, as well as the more prominent European countries, where trust and safety use cases are growing in prominence.

“There’s a lot of exciting mobile carriers in Southeast Asia, as well as in other developing markets that are making this information available for regulatory purposes,” he says. “And that’s our strict use case. We look to build on that. We think it’s an amazing definer in terms of who you are and who you say you are.”

Cohen adds that the platform doesn’t retain any individual information past the initial onboarding process.

“When you’re connected to hundreds and hundreds of disparate and unique data partners, it becomes unstructured data in a lot of ways,” Cohen says. “So we use our best practices and knowledge of the space to help standardize that information so that you can make a single call [on an entity] regardless of the country.”

In addition, Trulioo is working on a variety of different projects: enhancing EmbedID, a front-end tool that enables web developers to query the GlobalGateway platform, and by driving market reach through its partnership with Refinitiv and covering more geographies. To keep up with continual changes to AML/KYC regulations, the vendor will also focus on its capabilities to identify ultimate beneficial owners, a move that can help banking and payment customers dig deeper into uncovering who directly and indirectly owns certain businesses that try to open accounts.