“We had to catch up in customer identification and verification,” says Devrim Demirbas, Director Retail Department & Call Center at Anadolubank Nederland. “And we are now doing that together with DataChecker – to great satisfaction.” What does that collaboration look like? What does the bank like about it? And how does it consider using DataChecker in the future?
“Customer identification and verification requirements have become increasingly stringent,” says Devrim. “In the past, a 1-cent transaction and a copy of an ID were sufficient, supplemented by a physical verification at another bank. That is no longer sufficient.” External auditors have been urging Anadolubank in recent years to professionalize identification and verification. “But we wanted to do this even without their encouragement. It is important for us to know for sure that we have reliable customers. And to visibly comply with all laws and regulations. We want to show that our excellent reputation as a small savings bank is justified.”
Good care
In 2021, Devrim was looking for a party to bring identification and verification to the required level. “We found several candidates. But I had the best feeling with DataChecker.” What appealed to him? “They immediately understood our challenges and explained very clearly what was possible through them – now and in the future.” In June 2023, DataChecker started working for Anadolubank. “For the first time, our customer identification and verification then became a primarily online process. We can now keep track of the results in a special portal. And we hardly have to do anything ourselves anymore. DataChecker’s system and professionals take the worry off our hands.”
They do this as desired, says Devrim. “We started with new customers. They receive a text message from us, with a ‘secure link’ from DataChecker to a protected website. Here they can then go through the identification and verification process. This process went well for 90 percent of the people right away.” He was pleasantly surprised by that success rate. “I had secretly expected some teething problems, even though the test phase had been a success. Moreover, I knew that many of our customers are 60 years or older. Not exactly the group with the best digital skills. But the vast majority of people appear to be able to follow DataChecker’s process steps just fine.”
Recognizing selfies
The few customers who do not pass the identification and verification procedure in one go receive a new text message to try again. “That almost always works out fine. And if not, we call the customer and see what went wrong together.” So far, it has always been about small things, he says. “For example, people have to take a selfie for their identification and verification. With the old DataChecker software, it sometimes happened that it did not consider such a selfie good enough. For example, because the background was just a bit too dark. Fortunately, these kinds of problems hardly occur anymore with the updated software.”
Anadolubank is so pleased with the identification and verification that it recently extended its contract with DataChecker by one year. Devrim: “The next step is to approach our five thousand existing savers in addition to the thousand new customers per year. They will go through the same process.” As with new customers, DataChecker also checks whether this group is on a sanctions list – for example, from the United Nations, the European Union, the Dutch government or Foreign Assets Control. And whether they are ‘politically exposed persons’: people who, due to their prominent public function, are at greater risk of bribery and corruption.
Various advantages
“DataChecker helps us gain clarity,” Devrim summarizes. “Are people really who they say they are? Are they allowed to open an account with us? And what financial risks do they run because of their work? Our compliance department also checks the last two questions carefully, of course. But it is always good to have an extra check.” This clarity and greater certainty are important advantages of working with DataChecker, according to Devrim. But certainly not the only ones. “For example, our employees used to spend a lot of time and effort on manual identification and verification. Thanks to DataChecker’s online process, that is no longer necessary.”
Another advantage is that DataChecker can also offer additional services where necessary. Think of a check of non-Dutch identity documents; a check that requires more specific expertise. “Moreover,” says Devrim, “they are able to scale up their services. For example, DataChecker is now focusing on our private customers. But given the good experiences, we are considering also outsourcing the identification and verification of corporate customers to them. In particular, those who are authorised to arrange banking for these large organisations. Such an expansion is no problem for DataChecker.”
Always thinking along
“We regularly discuss with DataChecker what is going well and what could be improved,” says Devrim. “We do that every month. Although at the moment we hardly have any points for improvement. At most, what I asked them recently: whether I could stay logged in a little longer in the portal where DataChecker places reports.” Devrim extracts information per customer from these reports and places it in the bank’s customer files. “Every time I want to access such a report, I have to log in again. Very safe, but cumbersome. Couldn’t it be easier, without compromising security? DataChecker is open to thinking along about these kinds of questions. That also makes it very pleasant to work with them.”
