Equifax, the business and consumer insights expert, has announced a partnership with HooYu, leading customer onboarding and KYC RegTech provider, to expand its range of identity and fraud tools.

The strategic partnership will support Equifax clients across regulated and non-regulated sectors that are striving to improve their digital customer onboarding experience, and bolster their anti-fraud processes, while meeting anti-money laundering compliance requirements.

The collaboration will support the many financial and professional services businesses, including mortgage lenders, building societies and financial advisers, struggling to verify the identity of new customers via traditional methods due to Covid-19 restrictions. The solution allows companies to accelerate digital transformation, adapting to changing consumer behaviour and societal trends towards less face-to-face interaction. It also provides robust safeguards against fraud during a period when malicious cybercrime has risen exponentially, with Google reporting that scammers are sending 18 million Covid-19 related hoax emails a day to Gmail accounts*.

Equifax selected HooYu to provide a seamless extension to the existing Equifax database identity check solutions. Equifax clients can now choose from any of the configurable HooYu services including ID document validation, digital footprint analysis, proof of address matching, facial biometrics, geolocation and identity confidence scoring.

Equifax clients will also be able to deploy the HooYu user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) tools within their own website or app to help guide customers through the process, with Equifax and HooYu orchestrating the range of identity services to help maximise the success of the new KYC platform.

Keith McGill, Head of Fraud & ID at Equifax UK, commented: “By partnering with HooYu, we can simplify and improve KYC journeys for our clients, helping them to enhance end-user experience, safeguard future income streams, protect against the increasing threat of fraud, and meet regulatory standards.” 

David Pope, Marketing Director at HooYu said, “We ran a poll on a recent Equifax client webinar and unsurprisingly 70% of companies said they were currently in the process of streamlining their digital onboarding process**. The march towards digitalisation is gathering pace, especially at this difficult time when many financial services providers and professional services firms have lost their face-to-face onboarding channel while in Covid-19 lockdown.”

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Sources:
*Google, April 2020 
** Equifax and HooYu webinar, 05 May 2020. Total number of respondents to this question in the live stream online poll was 33

About HooYu: 
HooYu is a global customer on-boarding platform that provides UI & UX tools to deliver customised mobile or desktop digital journeys. HooYu is engineered not only to increase the integrity of KYC processes but to maximise the percentage of customers that can be successfully on-boarded.   

The HooYu digital on-boarding journey combines clever UI & UX with a range of KYC tools.  Key UI & UX considerations such as dynamic customer prompts, device language detection, reminder messages, white label customisation, logic steps to reduce friction, and customised journeys all help to maximise the success of customer account opening processes.
  
To increase the integrity of KYC processes, HooYu is the first identity platform to blend ID document validation, digital footprint analysis, geo-location and facial biometrics with traditional database checks and PEPS & sanctions screening. Behind all our proprietary KYC technologies is an identity confidence scoring engine that enables regulated entities to use HooYu on a Risk-Based Approach.  In this way, high-risk customers can be mandated to offer more evidence of identity than low risk customers.    

HooYu is used by tier one banks such as NatWest, challenger banks such as Countingup & many prepaid, FX, PSP and money transfer FinTechs.   

HooYu also serves FinTechs with an enhanced due diligence platform that uses data visualisation and network link analysis to help with business customer on-boarding to identify shareholders, directors, and Persons of Significant Control.  

https://hooyubusiness.com/

About Equifax: 

Equifax Inc., “Equifax” is a global information solutions company that uses unique data, innovative analytics, technology and industry expertise to power organisations and individuals around the world by transforming knowledge into insights that help make more informed business and personal decisions.

Headquartered in Atlanta, Ga., Equifax operates or has investments in 24 countries in North America, Central and South America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region. It is a member of Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500® Index, and its common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol EFX. Equifax employs approximately 11,000 employees worldwide.

Equifax Ltd is one of the Equifax group companies based in the UK. Equifax Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.