Digital Customer Onboarding Key To Unlocking FinTech Growth, Says Experts

Ugo Aliogo

FinTech startups have been tasked to digitalize their customer onboarding processes in order to scale and unlock the growth potentials of the sub-sector.

This was the summary of discussions at the just concluded Digital Identity Matters 3.0 webinar where thought leaders within the Nigerian FinTech ecosystem discussed the theme: How Seamless Customer Onboarding is Transforming FinTech Growth. The event was organised by VerifyMe Nigeria, a digital identity verification and Know-Your-Customer (eKYC) technology company and Tech Cabal Media.

Speaking at the webinar, the Managing Director, Branch International, Dayo Ademola, said that speed is a top priority for customers.

She also stated that FinTechs must deliver a seamless infrastructure that can onboard customers in minutes while ensuring that they do not have to leave the digital experience during the process.

She said: “As a digital lending platform, our approach was to build an algorithm-enabled credit scoring system to access applicants’ creditworthiness and dispatch loans within minutes to suitable candidates. This eliminated extended gaps in requesting for guarantors details or bank statements and the likes as we observed that majority of customers did not return after they dropped off because of these requirements.”

The Chief Executive Officer, VerifyMe Nigeria, Esigie Aguele, further explained that an efficient onboarding process must include a KYC infrastructure that allows the organisation to focus on its core business while ensuring seamless onboarding of customers that onboarding should be seen as an opportunity to grow and scale.

According to him: “We noticed from our experience with FinTech customers that the address verification component of KYC is usually regarded as a chore. FinTechs need to start seeing onboarding as the first opportunity to unlocking growth by getting as much data about a customer from many sources.

“We have many customers that use anything from our traditional address verification service, of which we are fastest, to our technologies for geo-tagging that enable us to provide quick address verification. Our last mile verification service is backed by over 11, 000 field agents, and we presently deliver it to over 20 banks in Nigeria’s major cities in under 24 hours.”

In his remarks, the Chief Executive Officer, Kuda Bank Babs Ogundeyi, highlighted the role of technology in driving innovation and mitigating risks within the system.

Ogundeyi said: “Onboarding in KYC requires continuous iteration because there are always criminals trying to circumvent the process. Innovative technology, such as liveness checks, support the onboarding process by ensuring that the person holding the device, which we can assume is the account opener, is the same image captured in the system because they have to take and upload a selfie in real-time. So, a customer cannot use someone else’s picture. As one of Nigeria’s leading digital banks, we have come a long way in creating smooth KYC and onboarding processes for our customers. From our experience, many things have to be in place for a seamless experience such as reliable broadband connectivity, affordable mobile devices, enabling regulation, technology and trained personnel, among others.”

The panel also called for expedited action on the harmonisation of national data points to support industry growth.