In today’s highly regulated digital businesses a frictionless, and secure identity verification has become a mandate. The traditional onboarding process for new clients can be time-consuming, error prone, labor-intensive, manual process involving multiple departments within the institution. This can lead to frustrating delays for customers and can put a strain on the business relationship.

If COVID-19 pandemic has made anything obvious to the business community, it is that riding the digital wave is no longer an option for businesses to thrive in the long-run. While several giant enterprises have already switched to a completely remote set up, laggards are still trying to figure their way around justifying such a move. For smaller organizations, however, investing in a digital-first future might not be as easy.

The saying “Good people, great nation” truly captures the essence of Nigeria- also known as the land of hope and opportunity. It is a nation that promotes healthy business growth with vibrant people with friendly energy expressed through diverse creative expressions. The development of the fintech industry in the past few years has been a shining star in the Nigerian economy, with the potential to shine brighter—even through the hurdles posed by the ongoing COVID-19 crisis.

As we look forward to restarting our normal lives in the ‘new-normal’ post the pandemic, we are looking to digital channels and devices to bridge the gap between what was done ‘in-person’ and what we can do safely from home. This is necessary for the financial services industry where consumers and businesses alike must move most of their operations online.

It is an accepted fact that one needs to constantly keep upgrading oneself to stay relevant in the industry and progress. Banks are at tipping point of adopting the changes happening in the industry. Digital channels have become “table stakes”, financial institutions must find different ways to differentiate themselves. Upending conventions, COVID 19 catalyzed the adoption of digital initiatives by companies and has also radically changed consumer behavior.

We live in a world where our heads are filled with security logins and pockets filled with Identity cards, but since a few years there is another rising star in the world of identity-DIGITAL IDENTITY. What is a digital ID? A digital identity is a set of verified digital attributes and credentials of a person, just like a person’s ID card for the physical world.

2020 has become the lens through which predictions for the whole decade will be forecasted. The wave of digital transformation has enabled easy availability of services from home for everyone and anyone. Some experts say that five years of digital transformation took place in six months due to the number of services and products that have moved to online access, but this has also made the market quite volatile.

With the changing calendar year, we also observe digital maturity among people. A change in their buying pattern, increased use of digital services for financial transaction, change in consumption pattern of social media content was anticipated and it happened. As a result, customers expectation from their digital experiences have increased significantly. They expect the brands to envision their necessities and customize their experiences.

We have witnessed major shifts in identity and verification industry as, post March 2020 a sudden explosion of people going digital was observed. It opened gates for vulnerability and opportunity for fraudsters. In April 2020, with a surge in work from home scenario- accelerated the process of administering remote systems and adequately protect them.

A sudden surge in acceptance of digital onboarding was observed during 2020.This new reality makes the onboarding of new customers a riskier affair. Over 90% of customers think that companies “could do better” when it comes to onboarding new customers. Either enterprises must collect a lot of information to ensure that onboarding customer is authentic which leads to high dropouts or by collecting less information to maintain user experience they jeopardize their security.