Identity security firm HooYu is partnering with EasyMoney to verify customer identity and improve user experience for the platform’s investors, reports Henry Villar of Fintech Futures, (Finovate’s sister publication).

EasyMoney has launched a range of “innovative finance” ISAs. These contain peer-to-peer (P2P) loans where lenders are matched online with borrowers, cutting out the banks, which allows them to offer substantially higher interest than currently available via traditional ISAs.

“(EasyMoney) aims to make quality financial products more accessible to everyone,” said Andrew de Candole CEO at EasyMoney. “One part of making these products accessible as possible is by making sure we can onboard customers as easily as possible with minimal friction, HooYu Identify enables us to do this.”

David Pope, marketing director at HooYu, commented: “HooYu Identify combines and blends new identity technologies such as digital footprint analysis, online ID document validation and facial biometrics with traditional database checks and PEPS [politically exposed persons] and sanctions screening.”

EasyMoney has picked HooYu’s tech to be implemented throughout the investors’ account opening process and to ensure AML compliance.

The team behind HooYu has built several database check businesses such as 192.com and 192business.com.

HooYu is also in charge of other firms’ KYC processes, such as challenger bank Countingup and gold-as-currency enabler Glint.

Founded in 2016, HooYu demonstrated its verification technology at FinovateEurope this spring. The company launched its HooYu Investigate data visualization tool to accelerate investigations and create actionable intelligence earlier this year. In August, the company launched its new hooyubusiness.com website, combining its identity verification and investigation services businesses.

Even in an age of cryptocurrencies, the appeal of of gold as an investment remains strong. This makes it all the more interesting to learn today that a fintech company has partnered with identity confirmation specialist HooYu to make it easier and safer for investors to buy and sell the yellow metal.

Specifically, HooYu has partnered with U.K.-based fintech Glint to provide customer identity verification during the account opening process. Glint offers a mobile app that enables users to load money into their account and convert it to gold. Users can then use their Glint Mastercard to make purchases using gold as their currency. Glint will use HooYu’s technology during the account opening process to meet AML and KYC requirements and ensure customers are who they say they are.

“It was important to us to design the account opening process to make it as easy as possible to open,” Glint co-founder Ben Davies explained, “we also needed a solution that would enable us to approve the customers who had pre-registered in a simple way.” HooYu has helped us get to launch and create a great digital journey that makes for easy and convenient account opening, whilst also complying with Anti Money Laundering regulations and preventing fraud.”

HooYu’s identity verification process is straightforward to use. The company sends the person to be verified an email or text message requesting identity information. The person uploads their information – online credentials, an official identity document, a selfie – and the HooYu Identity Engine analyzes the information submitted, cross-checking hundreds of data points to confirm the person’s identity. The platform is unique in the way it combines both modern identity technologies like digital footprint analysis and facial biometrics with more traditional protocols like database checks and PEPS and sanctions screening.

HooYu’s verification process takes only a few minutes. The company sends an email as soon as the verification is complete, and provides an ID report that can be reviewed on the HooYu dashboard. HooYu only shares or stores information that the user authorizes to provide to the requester. And once the verification process is finished, HooYu deletes all document images and social data from its platform.

Founded in 2016, HooYu demonstrated its verification technology at FinovateEurope 2018. Earlier this month, the company announced that it was working with Atos to improve its customer onboarding and due diligence for financial services clients. Atos also added the company to its global fintech partner program as a provider of global identity verification technology. Last month, HooYu teamed up with HouseSitMatch to verify the identity of house- and petsitters. And in December, the company partnered with Countingup to enhance the challenger bank’s account opening process.

Challenger bank Countingup is the latest firm to call on London-based HooYu for its innovative identity confirmation services. “It was important to us to design the account opening process to make it as easy as possible to open an account in less than five minutes,” Countingup CEO Tim Fouracre said. “HooYu helps us not just to comply with money laundering regulations and to prevent fraud but also helps us to curate a great digital journey that makes for easy and convenient account opening.”

Marketing Director for HooYu David Pope called Countingup “a truly differentiated offering from a challenger bank. He credited the institution for “offering more than just a bank account but the tools to help their customers manage and grow their business.”

(left to right) Marketing Director David Pope and Product Director Grant Greenwood demonstrating the HooYu platform at FinovateEurope 2017.

Countingup specializes in combining banking and accounting services for U.K. entrepreneurs, providing assistance with VAT returns, P&L reporting, invoicing, and book-keeping.  Customers who open a current account with Countingup, which plans to launch in early 2018, will get a U.K. sort code and account number, as well as a contactless MasterCard. Countingup announced a fundraising of $750,000 in October in a round led by Frontline Ventures.

HooYu won over Countingup based on the wide variety of identity confirmation solutions the firm provides. These include identity database checks and ID document validation as well as facial biometrics and digital footprint analysis. HooYu’s platform will also help Countingup meet AML requirements.

Founded in 2016 and headquartered in London, U.K., HooYu made its Finovate debut in February at FinovateEurope. Marketing Director David Pope and Product Director Grant Greenwood demonstrated the company’s global identity confirmation service that can be used by both businesses and individuals when making sensitive transactions.

In October, HooYu partnered with Cars-as-a-service innovator easyCar Club, providing identity verification for the 100,000 member car hire marketplace. In August, the company teamed up with online money transfer platform, BCRemit, to help the U.K.-based firm improve on-boarding and reduce fraud. Keith Marsden is CEO.

ID confirmation specialist HooYu announced a new partnership this week. The London-based fintech has teamed up with easyCar Club to provide identification verification for the 100,000-member P2P car hire marketplace.

“Our partnership with easyCar Club helps all parties in the equation to transact confidently,” HooYu Director of Marketing David Pope explained in a statement. “Insurers have the comfort that they know who is renting vehicles, easyCar Club are able to grow user numbers confidently and new users can enter the world of peer-to-peer marketplaces secure in the knowledge that they know who they are dealing with,” Pope said.

HooYu Director of Marketing David Pope demonstrating the company’s ID confirmation platform at FinovateEurope 2017.

“HooYu helps us add another layer of trust and safety to our marketplace giving our vehicle owners additional confidence in knowing that we proactively verify the identity of our users,” easyCar Club Product Manager Jin Ng said. easyCar Club leverages the growing popularity of the sharing economy to offer Cars-as-a-Service (CaaS) as a revenue opportunity for car owners and a convenience for people who only need cars on a short-term basis. Car owners earn an average of more than $1,900 (£1,500) a year lending their vehicles out and the company says its platform has facilitated “tens of thousands of rentals.”

HooYu cross-references and analyzes data from digital footprints in order to provide identity confirmation. The platform also uses a biometric face check, as well as data extraction and verification of the ID document itself to confirm real-world identity.

Founded in 2016 and based in London, U.K., HooYu demonstrated its platform at FinovateEurope 2017. In August, the company announced a partnership with BCRemit, an online money transfer platform based in the U.K., that will help the firm accelerate its customer onboarding process. Earlier this year, HooYu reported that it would bring its ID confirmation technology to the equity crowdfunding platform, Vestabyte.

Better onboarding and fewer fraud incidents are the goals of U.K.-based, online money transfer platform, BCRemit. And this week, the UK.-based company partnered with identity confirmation specialist HooYu to help them reach both of those critical objectives.

“HooYu is a great complement to the traditional database identity check approach,” BCRemit Managing Director Oliver Calma said. Because most of BCRemit’s customers are migrant workers without a credit “footprint”, Calma explained, verifying and onboarding them can be a cumbersome process. In addition to making verification and onboarding easier, HooYu’s technology will provide valuable anti-fraud protections. “HooYu also catches fraudsters that sometimes slip through identity database checks where they have already committed identity theft and know the name and address of the person they are impersonating,” Calma said.

BCRemit specializes in providing online money transfer services to migrant workers, particularly from the Philippines, who are employed in Europe. A registered payments institution with the U.K. Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), BCRemit enables recipients to collect cash at any one of more than 7,000 branches of BCRemit’s pay-out partners. Bank transfers can be made to any bank in the Philippines, including Allied Bank, BDO, and PNB.

Pictured: HooYu Marketing Director David Pope and Product Director Grant Greenwood demonstrating the HooYu identity confirmation platform at FinovateEurope 2017.

Director of Marketing for HooYu David Pope pointed to the ease-of-use of HooYu’s platform for the end user as another major selling point for the technology. “This enables our clients to improve conversion, still offer the consumer a smooth customer journey, and comply with AML regulations,” Pope said.

HooYu demonstrated its global identity confirmation service at FinovateEurope 2017. The company’s technology enables real-time identify verification without requiring any exchange or storage of sensitive personal information like social security numbers. Once integrated into the firm’s online application process, the HooYu service analyzes and cross checks data from the person’s digital footprint. At the same time, the technology extracts, analyzes, and validates information from the person’s ID documentation, including a biometric facial recognition check with the person’s photo ID.

In addition to money transfer firms, HooYu serves lenders, banks, and even individuals with its identify confirmation technology. “It’s our philosophy that in today’s digital age sometimes consumers want to check the identity of other consumers,” Pope said, using the example of P2P commerce via online marketplaces. “And it shouldn’t just be the privilege of big banks or clever online businesses to check someone else’s identity.”

Last month, HooYu announced a partnership with Australia’s first crowd investment platform, Vestabyte. In May, HooYu teamed up with Irish information services provider Stubbs Gazette. The company was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in London, U.K. Keith Marsden is CEO.