Investment Advisor Relies on Socure to Safely Accept More Customers

One of the fastest growing micro-investment advisors in the US was on their way to 2 million users. Keeping up with skyrocketing demand of over 100,000 new accounts per month was a welcome challenge.

As the company continues to expand and improve its leading investment platform, keeping ahead of the inevitable fraud that follows has been a top priority.

The Business Challenge

As part of the micro-investment advisor’s goal to simplify investing, they recognized the importance of providing a simple, frictionless user experience from account opening through account usage. The company quickly realized that verifying the identities of new account applicants was particularly challenging. Early on, the company used one of the leading credit bureaus to verify the identity of new applicants. However, a large percentage of applicants are millennials and therefore do not have sufficient credit data from which to verify their identity. Applicants with either a thin file or no credit file were required to provide additional identity and authentication data to be validated, but most of these applicants simply abandoned the application process due to friction.

The VP of Brokerage is responsible for full customer lifecycle management, including fraud management.

“We tried to use the big credit bureaus to verify new applicant identities, but were frustrated that so many applicants needed additional verification steps due to their lack of identity data. We tend to serve the younger, mobile population that demands a friction-free digital experience. Almost every time we require additional information from an applicant they drop out. Due to our need for adequate fraud prevention and meeting regulatory requirements, our hands were tied. We knew we were losing good applicants and needed to stop the bleeding.”

– VP of Brokerage

Why Socure

The company’s management team was referred to Socure by multiple fraud prevention professionals. They learned that Socure’s identity verification solution leveraged offline, online and social identity data that were well suited for the millennial population.

“I was intrigued by Socure’s approach. It made complete sense to look beyond traditional credit bureau data to validate the millennial population.

– VP of Brokerage

After evaluating proof of concept models and performing the required due diligence, this microinvestment advisor decided to partner with Socure for their identity verification needs.

The Solution

The company decided to leverage several products available on Socure’s ID+ platform, including Sigma Fraud Score, Email Risk Score, Phone Risk Score, Socure Verify and AML Standard solutions. These products help the company to comply with regulatory requirements with maximum coverage to ensure the highest possible auto-acceptance levels while keeping a lid on fraud.

Results

The team has been impressed with the results achieved from Socure’s products. The VP of Brokerage explained, “Using Socure’s product set, we got about a 20% lift in auto-approvals while maintaining the same low fraud levels. As a digital-only provider, it’s critical that good prospects can quickly and easily open accounts with us. Socure helps us save significant manual review time and expense while also increasing user satisfaction and reducing application abandonment. It’s a win, win, win!”

The company continuously shares their results with Socure as this feedback helps enhance model accuracy.

“Socure’s results are simple, accurate, and very easy to use. We are all confident that the traffic we send to Socure is handled well. The service is always available and has no latency. It just works – we can depend on Socure’s results to validate identity and reduce risk on the platform. And we know Socure is making their product better all the time.”

– VP of Brokerage