Effortless Casino Onboarding: Concept of User Verification

As managers spend substantial amounts of money to engage and bring customers to their websites, it is important to ensure that onboarding on the platform is as smooth and as fast as possible. The shift from data to biometric verification is changing the perception of KYC customers' due diligence and long-term engagement, whether that relates to fraud, insecurity, safer gambling, or betting integrity.

Major Challenges with Verification

The sign-up and onboarding process for players should be as quick and smooth as possible. With an increased focus on user care, and stricter regulations around immediate verification, operators have to include client recognition as part of the onboarding journey. Without the right tools, it can become very cumbersome for the punters.

Two biggest issues managers might face without the proper preparation for onboarding:

Lack of Programming Support

One of the biggest challenges at the moment is to be able to offer direct tools for the customers during the account creation to make them feel a frictionless experience. If the verification process is absent at the beginning, it would mean the necessity to interrupt the participation to understand the customer.

This is relevant for internal reasons, regulations, and client care. Operators are trying to aim for a smoother process for users to be able to get through onboarding and start to deposit and play as quickly as possible.

Mismatched Regulations

Another challenge for a smooth start is localisation. Operators find it hard to have a general application process because the regulations are different in individual markets. When entering a particular area, the challenge is to identify what the customer expectations are and deliver a journey that they expect.

Meanwhile, it is integral to adapt and possibly match these demands with the regulator’s requirements. As operators function in a multi-jurisdictional environment, they need a solution which meets every one of those regions.

For example, in the Dutch market, players are used to resorting to bank verification. On the other hand, in the UK, the audience does not want to be working with these financial institutions when signing up with a bookie. For operators, it comes down to understanding what friction is good and which one is not.

Insights of Biometric Verification

The analysis of a player always starts with an official document check. Operators and security companies request scans or quality photos of a passport, driving licence, or international ID.

Aspects that are studied under an initial verification:

• first and last name;
• date of birth;
• ID number;
• gender;
• origin and location.

Security check-ups also involve the AI-based investigation of whether the documents have been tampered with or manipulated to confirm it is not a forgery.

With the rise of artificial intelligence software, synthetic identities are becoming more widespread. Better technological development creates a risk of ID thefts, considering how popular biometric verification turned out to be. However, not only illicit tools are getting more advanced. To combat harmful activities and prevent identity theft, developers battle AI with itself. It means that verification technologies are getting stronger as well, making it close to impossible to be deluded if used software from renowned brands.

Confirming the documents is the first and one-time stage for registering on the platform. Today, the latest solutions use images, namely selfies, to corroborate passport or ID documents.

Innovation in an All-in-One Software Package

The dream opportunity for managers is to integrate a single piece of programming support and ensure the absence of friction during the onboarding process for clients globally.

This hub should be able to cover the following functions:

Having an all-in-one hub is vital to platform integration. It functions as a point of contact from a customer account maintenance perspective and a fully robust back-end dashboard to look at user analytics, risk profiles, trends, and patterns. Such software becomes a map of the entire confirmation process across different markets.

Also known as a KYC wallet of IDs, this package of verification information is set to be used by an operator in different scenarios and stages of a player’s journey.

Risk Management during Identity Confirmation

To achieve a smooth operational process for themselves and their clients, managers have to plan the requirements and the capabilities of markets to meet them.

Depending on the jurisdiction, there are two typical approaches to registration, heavy and light:

• In regions like the Netherlands, the amount of verification information is enormous. This allows operators to do a lot of the checks upfront. For AML purposes, managers need to run investigations for sanctions. Due to high-quality data rights for the registration process, it is possible to conduct those checks nicely and early.
• In the UK, managers do not need to get IDs from everyone. As a choice, operators may want to do it if they suspect that users’ identities have been compromised. With suspicious behaviour, there are enough grounds to send such users through document verification. Sudden checks of KYC on the background of financial institutions like TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax are common in the UK. At the same time, there are no demands to oblige someone to do that by default.

Therefore, the necessity of required verification is based on the understanding of the domain and customer expectations. The regulatory obligations may be applying quite prescriptive at the point of onboarding. But once that has been completed, operators would resort to a risk-based approach to manage certain individuals and would not apply the same set of checks to every single player.

Operators effectively figure out the trigger points for different checks. In some markets, they will do sanctions at registration and in other regions — at deposit. It is important to analyse, understand, and implement such a frictionless approach to avoid interrupting the customer journey.

Some of the most relevant checks are anti-money laundering investigations. Typically, they are conducted discreetly without users being aware. Based on the findings, it is up to an operator to communicate and decide upon the measures to be taken.

Open Banking

A system that provides access to financial data through the use of application programming interfaces has been initially seen as a silver-bullet solution to affordability and AML checks.

First of all, such interconnectivity allows for preventing any unpreferred expenditures, for example, credit funds, family savings, life earnings, etc. At the same time, it is all about player consent and regulatory measures. Not all jurisdictions approve of providers openly monitoring people’s balance.

There are two critical notions about this concept:

1. From a payment perspective, when a player makes a deposit on the basis of open banking, these accounts are trusted more.
2. From a KYC side, a user who shares such information with a gambling brand reveals all his transactions to a company.

The process of frictionless onboarding can be compared to a jigsaw puzzle. Operators initially focused on the frame of a customer profile. As the development of the relationship continues, more pieces are added where necessary based on user activity.

The Main Things about the Process of Frictionless Onboarding

Innovative software balances between quick sign-up procedure and a secure and reliable understanding of a new player:

• It is integral to adapt and possibly match safety demands with the regulator’s requirements with a multi-jurisdictional solution which meets every one of those regions.
• The analysis of a player always starts with an official document check: the request for the scans or quality photos of a passport, driving licence, or international ID.
• Biometric verification with selfies is then used for further access to the platform with innovative solutions to corroborate passport or ID documents.
• The dream opportunity for managers is to integrate a single piece of programming support and ensure the absence of friction during the onboarding process for clients globally.
• The necessity of required verification is based on the understanding of the domain and customer expectations.
• Another relevant solution is open banking which provides access to financial data through the use of application programming interfaces and has been initially seen as a silver-bullet solution to affordability and AML checks.

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