For online merchants, uncertainty over whether to trust certain high risk transactions could soon be a thing of the past.
Veridu, a disruptive startup offering identity solutions for the payments industry is today announcing that it has secured investment from Worldpay Group plc (Worldpay). The investment received will support Veridu in further developing and rolling out their solutions globally.
“The payments industry is entering a period of disruption as consumers expect to be able to buy or access the products and services they want, when they want, however they want, and from wherever they want. Online businesses who want to compete successfully on a global level can find themselves limited by their ability to verify the identity of their users, especially in some developing countries, where large segments of the population have been excluded from traditional financial services, or may not have official identity documents,” says Rasmus Groth, CEO and founder of London-based Veridu.
By using advanced algorithms and people’s social media profiles, Veridu is able to score how trustworthy the identity of a person is. With the user’s consent, the information is then shared with the company who has asked to establish trust in their identity, such as a sharing economy platform or online store. This innovative method of bringing trust to online transactions has made several investors and venture capitalists invest in Veridu, and now Worldpay has joined this investor group.
Recovering legitimate transactions
As consumer bases become more international, many online businesses struggle with false positives — wrongly declining legitimate transactions - as the methods they use to verify identity in their home markets may not work in all countries. The ability to comprehensively verify the identities of potential customers globally, therefore, has a direct impact on their revenues.
“Veridu was established to bring trust to the internet and eliminate the identity verification challenge by harnessing the widespread adoption of social media, and using this wealth of information on an individual as a form of identity. Now that Worldpay has invested in us, we’ll work closely with them to further strengthen our product and make sure that it meets all the needs that payments processors and their customers have in today’s economy,” says Rasmus Groth and adds: “The investment from Worldpay also shows that the payments industry is looking at how they can adapt processes for today’s more global and connected consumers. Leveraging social media the way we do, we’ve found a way to offer truly global coverage, which also spans a wide range of demographics, and can be used to recover legitimate transactions. It’s the future of authentication.”
Ron Kalifa, Vice Chairman, Worldpay said, “We believe identity lies at the heart of payments. One of the biggest challenges online merchants face is to accept as many good payments as possible whilst avoiding potentially fraudulent ones. To do this they need to be able to authenticate transactions with confidence, quickly and easily.
“By verifying shoppers via their digital identity, Veridu’s technology delivers an additional level of security for higher risk transactions. By partnering with this innovative startup, Worldpay will be able to offer our customers yet another way to protect their business from online fraud.”
The recent investment from Worldpay is undisclosed. It’s no more than half a year ago that Veridu raised £800,000 and according to Rasmus Groth, he expects a valuation of £20-25 million in 2017.