Online money transfer specialist Fonmoney speeds up customer verification with HooYu

Identity confirmation defends money transfer industry from fraudsters with forged passports and fake identities

Identity confirmation provider HooYu today announced that their identity confirmation technology is helping online money transfer specialist Fonmoney to fast track its KYC (Know Your Customer) procedures for welcoming and verifying new customers.

Prior to using HooYu, Fonmoney sometimes had to use man-hours to manually review ID documents before transactions could proceed as part of Anti-Money Laundering compliance requirements. This sometimes meant that customer approvals could take two to three hours if the information given was incomplete, meaning that customers who transacted overnight might not be approved until the next working day.

HooYu is now being integrated into the Fonmoney site so that users can now quickly and easily be verified through HooYu’s unique combination of digital footprint analysis, ID document authentication, facial biometrics and identity scoring. Once the customer has passed the automated HooYu ID confirmation, they can send money abroad to friends or family quickly and easily with low fees and great exchange rates.

The team at Fonmoney was well prepared for the risks of online money transfer and could see that fraudsters were trying to transact with fake passports and stolen payment card details. Fonmoney looked to database-led ID checks to verify their customers, but with ten local language sites already live, they needed a service that would work equally well for customers using Irish, Turkish, Polish, Romanian and French corridors amongst others.

Matthias Wurmböck, Managing Partner at Fonmoney said, “On one hand, using  HooYu means that we are not just ticking compliance boxes and preventing fraud, but more importantly to us, HooYu helps us make the journey for all of our customers more efficient and smooth. They have been a good partner to us in helping to ensure that we are in line with customer identity checking compliance, while localising their platform together to ensure the best possible customer experience as we continue to grow into new markets.”

David Pope, Marketing Director at HooYu said, “The money transfer industry needs an identity confirmation service to help verify identity where traditional database checks fall short. Our approach of not just checking an ID document, but looking at the wider picture by using digital footprint analysis and facial biometrics in conjunction with ID document authentication helps firms like Fonmoney to build true confidence that their customers are indeed, who they say they are.”

Veronica Studsgaard, CEO at the International Association of Money Transfer Networks said, “Money remitters are constantly striving to meet the challenges of ever growing remittance volumes and increased regulatory requirements.  KYC technologies like HooYu are helping remitters to verify and welcome new customers, speed up the flow of money and to meet regulatory requirements.”

HooYu was established as a global identity verification platform to help businesses authenticate customer identity.

The HooYu service is integrated into a merchant’s site and customers are asked to take three simple steps:

  • Take a selfie
  • Share their online identity such as Facebook or LinkedIn and take a photo of their driving licence, ID card or passport.
  • HooYu extracts and scores the identity information from the user’s online identity and ID documents, HooYu then authenticates their ID document and completes a biometric facial verification.