HooYu brings KYC tech to gold-as-currency enabler Glint
Even in an age of cryptocurrencies, the appeal of gold as an investment remains strong, writes David Penn at Finovate. UK-based fintech Glint has partnered with identity confirmation specialist HooYu to make it easier and safer for investors to buy and sell the yellow metal.
HooYu will 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 explains, “we also needed a solution that would enable us to approve the customers who had pre-registered in a simple way”. HooYu has helped Glint to us “to launch and create a great digital journey”.
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 analyses 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 says its 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 authorises to provide to the requester. And once the verification process is finished, HooYu deletes all document images and social data from its platform.
HooYu was founded in 2016. 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 programme as a provider of global identity verification technology. Last month, HooYu teamed up with HouseSitMatch to verify the identity of house- and pet-sitters. And in December last year, the company partnered with Countingup to enhance the challenger bank’s account opening process.
