HyperVerge, one of the world’s largest identity verification firms based in Silicon Valley, has expanded its global operations to the Philippines, a country that it views as the new growth center in the Southeast Asian region.
HyperVerge empowers enterprises with artificial intelligence (AI) solutions that enable them to improve and automate their processes, provide better customer experience, and digitally adapt at a quicker pace.
According to the latest State of Finance App Marketing report of AppsFlyer, overall demand for financial technology (fintech) apps in the Philippines soared by 68 percent in the past year.
The pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital solutions for everyday tasks — from work to schools — and HyperVerge hopes to support this growth momentum through its deep-learning networks.
“The Philippines is fast becoming the new growth center in Southeast Asia and we want to be part of that story while also helping accelerate it much faster. We see a huge opportunity to use our technology in a meaningful way, especially in supporting the government’s initiatives for financial inclusion,” HyperVerge CEO Kedar Kulkarni said.
Over 70 percent of the country remains unbanked and more and more Filipinos rely on fintech services for their daily needs. With local lockdowns enforced and contactless transactions preferred, the smartphone has become the new essential to be able to live life in the “new normal.”
But the soaring usage of fintech apps in the country has also translated to rising cybercrime and fraud rates, making users more vulnerable in the much-mystified space of the internet.
The Department of Justice cited phishing, online scams and misinformation to be the most prevalent crimes in the country last July 2020. This March, the Fintech Alliance of the Philippines also reminded netizens to exercise vigilance, as the number of online scams and fraud kept increasing.
“We are best positioned to support various industries, especially the finance and telecom sectors, with our technology, which simplifies the complex structure of AI, and processes millions of images, videos and documents, to verify and ensure legitimacy,” HyperVerge Co-Founder Praveen Kumar said.
HyperVerge enables financial institutions to reduce risks related to fraud and identity theft while maintaining the efficient processing of documents and services.
So far, it has helped lenders in different territories in India, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore and the United States to save $50 million from fraud annually.
“We want to help Filipinos gain more access to financial services, and our technology creates an information ecosystem that makes it easier for lenders to verify the information and detect fraudsters from the get-go.” Kumar said.
HyperVerge offers state-of-the-art services such as Facematch & Liveness, ID quality checks and optical character recognition, Face-Based Deduplication to identify fraudsters, ID Forgery Checks, Video KYC and checks against a decentralized nationwide database. It is also one of only 3 companies in the world that has ISO certification (ISO-30107-3) for single image liveness detection solutions, which ensures a faster and more accurate identity verification process.
For instance, HyperVerge’s video KYC solution uses a smart scheduler that is optimized for high throughput, giving customers near-real-time services. The data is then processed immediately for liveness checks and face matches through AI. This cuts the process from 25 minutes to less than 5 minutes.
With more than 450 million identities verified and 100 customers around the world–the tech giant’s impressive portfolio has made it a sought-after service.
Globally, its roster of clients includes established companies like CIMB, Home Credit, SquidPay, State Bank Of India and Grab. HyperVerge is also backed by investors such as New Enterprise Associates, Milliways Ventures, and Dallas Venture Capital.
“We continue to build the necessary infrastructure to enable institutions to collaborate in stopping fraud and strengthening their processes. Currently, we are working with three large financial institutions in the Philippines and we are keen on expanding our footprint moving forward,”Kumar said.
As government financial institutions like the Securities and Exchange Commission introduce measures to prevent fraud, more private firms also need to gear up for this new digital era. Strong user demand and the new, up and coming aggressive market for digital banking has made precaution and risk-minimizing all the more important.
“Ensuring customer protection and minimal risks translates to market stability,” Kulkarni said. “With fintech still at its infancy in the country, we want to provide a helping hand in ensuring that this sudden surge toward digital services continues to happen smoothly.”
