This Mumbai-based regtech startup enables companies to remotely verify users in 10 seconds

Traditional sectors like banking or travel involve a lot of manual entry of data, physically scanning and verifying of documents, and KYC (Know Your Customer) profiling. However, the outbreak of coronavirus has forced companies and institutions to turn towards solutions that remove physical touchpoints to curb the spread of the virus. 

Mumbai-based entrepreneur Yasin Patel realised the bottlenecks in physical verification of identity and documents way back in August 2017. Aiming to replace manual data entry for passports, he had developed Accura Scan, an enterprise product of his company Accura Technolabs.

Headquartered in Mumbai, the startup enables user on-boarding and remote real-time user authentication. According to Yasin, 39, says the product is trying to “…solve the issues of fraud, wait time, and create seamless experiences”.

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On-boarding in 10 seconds

Accura Scan has multiple modules that cover the whole KYC cycle. This includes OCR of documents, face biometrics, and liveness check. 

Yasin claims that using Accura Scan, clients can on-board customers instantly – within 10 seconds. Its Software Development Kit (SDK) is available on a licensing basis to its clients. Customers or enterprises can either install the SDK on their devices or their in-house developers can customise an app for the SDK. 

Once ready for use, the client can ask its customers to scan an official document. “It can be any official document from any country and in any language,” Yasin confirms. Once the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) of the app is done, the customer is asked to click a selfie to face-match with the documentation provided. 

The product then uses artificial intelligence (AI) for live-checking, i.e., to verify if the user is presently live at the spot, and prevent fraudulent activities. Once everything is verified, a quick background check is done on the backend using AI and machine learning (ML) algorithms before the user is on-boarded. 

Using Accura Scan, the verification process — which can take up to two days’ time — is reduced to 10 seconds.

User verification business 

“The vacuum in KYC and Quick Customer Boarding across verticals gave rise to this idea. The processes were not just time-consuming, but banks and financial institutions were also concerned about the risk involved,” Yasin says. 

The Accura Scan team has 15 employees. While Yasin takes care of the business and innovation, CTO Ali Masani handles product development. The startup also has a sales team, which takes care of inbound leads. 

Accura Scan’s target audience includes players from banking, financial institutions, telecom and travel industries. The product was exhibited for the first time at WTM London in 2018, where it on-boarded its first clients.

At present, it works with more than 25 international clients, including Ahli United Bank, Commercial Bank of Dubai, Deem Finance, C3 Cards, Easy Pay, and Japan Tax Free. Additionally, the founder claims that more than 500 companies are evaluating the solution for use. 

According to Yasin, Accura Scan’s licence is available on an annual basis. The licensing fee varies across sectors, and depends on the customer usage. 

Bootstrapped with $100,000, Accura Scan claims to have recovered its initial investment within six months of launch.

“We aim to on-board 15 banks and a dozen airlines and telecom companies, generating a revenue of $3 million year on year,” Yasin adds. 

The regtech market 

The financial services sector, in an attempt to reduce the ever-increasing burden of regulatory terms, have been turning to regulatory technology or regtech solutions. According to PWC, there are more than 600 companies in the space worldwide, providing solutions and support to other businesses. Frost & Sullivan suggests that the global regtech market is expected to reach $6.45 billion by this year. 

PWC also says regtech is poised to be the future of facilitating compliance management and minimising regulatory risks. 

Companies like New-Delhi based Verismart are using blockchain to automate KYC, risk, and business profiling of customers. Other players in the market include PXL Vision, Trulioo, Urjanet, Yoti, and Zighra. 

“Our USP is our proprietary OCR technology; the face biometric solutions have a plug-and-play model,” Yasin says. 

Going ahead, the entrepreneur wants Accura Scan to become one of the top players for KYC and User Identity Verification checks. “We are developing more modules to create a super journey for the customers using AI and Deep ML,” he adds. 

Since the outbreak of coronavirus, Accura Scan has been offering free ID verification to the government and healthcare institutions.

Yasin says, “With help of KYC and biometric, it becomes easy to identifying users during rationing food, PPE kits and other essential services.”