Identity verification providers for US banks and fintechs

Verifying a new customer used to happen face to face: they'd hand over a driver's license, and someone behind a counter would look it over. Now customers can open accounts with a selfie on their phone, and you're expected to verify them in seconds without adding enough friction to make them give up on the application.

But fast and thorough don't always go together. Behind every split-second decision, you're trying to keep conversion high, meet your KYC obligations and keep fraud out – and a miss on one could cost you on the other two.

Identity verification providers for US banks and fintechs include GBG, Socure and Alloy, among others. Each one approaches verification and risk management a little differently, so the right fit comes down to your specific priorities.

Let’s get started!

Identity verification providers for US banks and fintechs: quick comparison

GBG: An IDV provider US banks and fintechs

Verifying identity at sign-up is only the first decision. You keep making decisions over the life of the account: who this person is, whether they're a fraud risk, what to do when the evidence doesn't add up, and what changes after the account is open.

Here's how GBG, an IDV provider for US banks and fintechs, supports each of those decisions, starting with how much verification to ask for in the first place:

Match the level of verification to the risk

The GBG Go platform brings identity, fraud and risk capabilities together in one place, so you can build verification around your own risk requirements. For example, a checking account for a long-standing customer doesn't need the same evidence as a high-limit credit line for a stranger. The goal is enough evidence to make a confident decision without asking genuine customers for more than the risk calls for.

For higher-value products, the balance tips toward more checks. 

"Companies who are delivering high-value goods and services are happy to layer on additional identity and fraud checks because the cost of one fraud getting through far outweighs the cost of verifying more rigorously up front," says Stefan Gajewski, Head of Product – Identity at GBG.

Look at fraud risk alongside identity 

Matching an applicant's data is only the first step. Synthetic identities are built to pass that test, so a name, date of birth, and address that all check out don't prove much on their own.

GBG’s solutions can look at fraud and synthetic identity risk alongside identity verification, not a separate step afterward. For example, GBG’s transaction monitoring can increase fraud detection by up to 34% and accelerate transaction triage with false positives reduced by up to 51%.

Send unclear cases to an analyst

Not every application comes out as a clean "approve" or "reject." Some come with conflicting evidence, and forcing a yes or no on those is how you end up turning away good customers or approving bad ones. The GBG Go platform routes these cases into case management, where an analyst can see the evidence collected, what's been decided so far, and why.

That keeps your analysts focused on the applications that actually need manual review. It also leaves a record of how each decision was reached, and regulators care about that as much as they care about accuracy.

Keep watching after the account is open

A customer who was low-risk on day one doesn't necessarily stay that way. We monitor past account opening, so changes in a customer's compliance or risk profile still get flagged after the application is approved.

Ongoing monitoring and transaction monitoring are easy to mix up, but they watch different things. Ongoing monitoring tracks changes tied to the customer: their compliance status and risk profile. Transaction monitoring looks at what's happening inside the account and flags financial activity that looks suspicious.

Here are some other alternatives to consider…

Socure

Socure’s highlights include:

• Identity and fraud signals: Phone, email, address, and credit data are combined to assess applicant risk before deciding whether to ask for more.
• Risk-based orchestration: RiskOS uses those signals in real time to trigger step-ups such as one-time passwords, document verification or selfie capture when the data is uncertain.
• Predictive decisioning models: High-volume identity checks run automatically, so more account-opening decisions are made outright, instant approvals go up and your compliance team's operational costs come down.
• Conversion and drop-off analytics: Detailed reporting shows exactly where applicants drop out of your funnel, so you can refine onboarding rules and reduce friction over time.

Alloy

Alloy is an orchestration platform that lets you coordinate third-party identity, fraud, and compliance vendors in a single workflow. 

Custom policies and risk thresholds decide whether an applicant is approved, denied, stepped up for more verification or sent to your compliance team for manual review.

With waterfalling, if the first data provider can't verify an applicant with confidence, Alloy automatically tries a second one before failing the application.

You can also test policy changes before they go live by running simulations on historical applicant data and seeing how approval rates, false positives, and fraud capture would move.

Final thoughts

The best identity verification provider isn't necessarily the one that runs the most checks. It's the one that helps you decide which checks each customer actually needs, while balancing fraud prevention, compliance and conversion.

With GBG, for instance, US banks and fintechs can manage identity verification, fraud detection, risk-based orchestration, case management, ongoing monitoring and transaction monitoring as part of the same approach.

FAQs: Identity verification for US banks and fintechs

What's the difference between identity verification and identity orchestration?

Identity verification is the check itself: matching data points or documents to confirm who an applicant is. Identity orchestration is the workflow layer that ties several of those checks together with fraud checks and decision rules, in real time.

How do identity verification providers detect synthetic identity fraud?

They look at how data points relate to each other over time. Credit file depth, phone number age, email history and cross-industry fraud intelligence can all help determine whether an identity was fabricated.

Why are false positives an important metric when evaluating identity providers?

A false positive is a genuine applicant who gets flagged as high risk or fraudulent by mistake. Too many of them create friction, push up drop-offs and leave compliance teams spending hours reviewing legitimate applications.

*Disclaimer: Information relating to third-party products and companies referenced in this article is based on publicly available sources and official publications at the time of writing. While reasonable efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, product features, positioning and company information may change and GBG does not guarantee that all information remains current or complete.

Nothing in this article constitutes an endorsement, recommendation or ranking of any third-party provider. Readers should consult each provider’s official website and conduct their own assessment before making any purchasing decisions.

To request an update or correction, please contact press@gbg.com.

Sources: 

https://www.socure.com/solutions/riskos 

https://www.socure.com/use-cases/onboarding 

https://www.alloy.com/orchestration-decisioning-engine