With Brex Cash, the company’s new cash management product, Brex provides access to a bank account replacement for businesses with no fees on ACH and wire transfers and seamless integration with the Brex Card. But launching a new financial product introduces a world of new responsibilities, and Brex needed to ensure that its customers are (and continue to be) who they say they are to comply with KYC / AML regulations and prevent fraud.
Brex needed to streamline onboarding with ID verification while maintaining robust fraud detection
As a new product line, Brex Cash was first offered to existing Brex Card customers, and then to new business customers. For both existing and new customers, Brex needed a way to confirm the identity of applicants for Brex Cash in compliance with regulations, through a conversion-optimized flow.
Brex opted to use Persona’s government ID verification to determine whether or not a government-issued ID (from over 100 countries across the globe) is a valid ID. Moreover, for existing Brex Card users who applied for Brex Cash, Brex used Persona to extract information from the Government ID and compare it against information from the customer’s account to ensure that the actual owner of the account was the one applying for Brex Cash.
Persona’s automated identity verification solution provides three major advantages over previous verification methods (manual checks and users entering information across multiple accounts):
- Reduces cases of fraud by adding an extra layer of protection that prevents fraudulent activity.
- Saves onboarding time, as existing Brex Card users don't need to reenter duplicative information.
- Allows for thorough KYC, helping Brex learn as much about the customer account as possible, in addition to performing a database lookup.
While many providers do not support international IDV, Persona covers 192 countries and 9 languages. This helped Brex in several key areas:
- Allowed Brex to automatically verify IDs from multiple countries
- Standardized ID inspection checks
- Automated verifications that can scale quickly
Persona helped Brex roll out a global solution securely, maximizing completion rates while minimizing risk of fraud.
Brex found a variety of key Persona features instrumental in developing Brex Cash. Here are the main features that unlocked ID verification for Brex.
1. Geographic coverage for IDs
Brex sees IDs from many different countries. They relied on Persona for global ID coverage while controlling which countries they want to accept IDs from and which IDs they want to accept on a per-country basis. This support extends beyond just the countries to the types of documents within each country.
2. Performance
Persona’s embedded flow seamlessly verifies government IDs for Brex. With processing times in under 10 seconds, Brex users were able to complete the end to end flow in an average of 30 seconds. Selfie video verification provides an additional layer of fraud deterrence by comparing a live face to the government ID portrait.
3. Frictionless flows
With Persona, Brex Cash sees high completion rates (>90%). This performance translates to minimal impact on conversion, and the majority of users get through the verification process on their first try, maximizing sign up rates. Nothing ruins a user acquisition like a leaky verification process.
4. Account match
The information extracted from IDs (such as name and birthdate) is cross referenced against the account details in real time to verify the identity of the account owner.
5. Customizable configuration
Persona allows Brex to quickly customize configurations for particular needs. For example, they can build a specific, branded verification UI with custom icons, secondary text colors, and specific theme changes. With Persona, Brex can also tweak the addition of specific countries and specific ID types by country and quickly add support for new countries and ID types based on changing business requirements.
6. Partnership for launch
Persona’s team were true partners to Brex throughout every step.
The future of Brex and Persona
Brex is a company built on innovation and creativity. With Persona handling all things identity, and without getting bogged down by fraud or poor ID verification, Brex can continue to build cutting edge fintech solutions.
