Most accounts – whether you’re a bank onboarding a new customer, a college enrolling students or a wealth manager taking on a new client – are now opened online rather than in-person. This has led to a growing need to verify identities and ensure ongoing compliance remotely.

In a crowded marketplace, how do you choose which identity verification software provider is the best option for your business?

Key considerations when choosing an identity verification provider

The true cost of delivery

The true cost of identity verification includes more than the price of each check. Implementation, integration, ongoing maintenance and manual reviews all contribute to the overall investment. A solution that appears inexpensive upfront can become costly if it requires substantial development work or creates friction for customers.

When comparing providers, consider:

  • Implementation: What resources will you need to configure, test and launch the solution?
  • Integration: How easily will it connect with your existing systems and customer journeys?
  • Customer experience: How straightforward is verification, and what happens when a customer cannot complete a check?
  • Ongoing management: Who maintains the technology, updates verification processes and supports your team?
  • Operational workload: How much manual intervention is needed to review results and resolve exceptions?

How to choose a delivery model that fits your business

Identity verification can be delivered through a ready-to-use platform, an API/SDK integration or a combination of both. ID-Pal also offers a native Salesforce integration as an additional deployment option. The right approach depends on your technical resources, internal processes and the level of control you need over the customer experience.

An API-led approach offers flexibility, but the development effort varies between providers. Establish what is included, what your team will need to build and who is responsible for maintaining each part of the solution.

A ready-to-use platform can reduce that workload by providing the customer verification journey and the tools your team needs to manage checks. Integration options remain important if you want verification to connect with wider business processes.

Data security

Identity verification involves sensitive personal information, including identity documents and biometric data. Your provider should be able to explain how this information is collected, protected, stored and deleted—and who can access it.

When assessing a provider, consider:

  • Encryption: Is data encrypted both during transmission and while stored?
  • Access controls: Who can view customer data, and how is access restricted and monitored?
  • Data storage: Where is information processed and stored, and are third-party suppliers involved?
  • Retention and deletion: Can retention periods align with your requirements, and how is data securely deleted?
  • Independent assurance: What security certifications and external assessments support the provider’s claims, and what do they cover?
  • Incident response: How does the provider detect, manage and communicate security incidents?

Ask for evidence of these controls during your evaluation. Clear documentation and contractual commitments help you assess whether a provider meets your security standards and supports your data protection obligations.

Our solution provides best-in-class management to keep customer data safe. All data is encrypted and never stored on the edge device, nor by ID-Pal after verification. As experts in encryption, security and privacy, we implement secure systems and operate critical identity verification services for our customers.

How ID-Pal supports identity verification and onboarding

ID-Pal combines biometric, document and database checks to help businesses verify customer identities and addresses. Our ready-to-use platform supports deployment without building an entire verification solution from scratch, while SDK and API options allow businesses to easily integrate verification into their customer journeys and internal systems.

Learn more about how ID-Pal works or get a demo to see our solution in action.