Fractal’s Free Tier KYC is about enabling identity on the internet

Julian Leitloff
Nov 6 · 5 min read

We at Fractal build software to help companies identify their customers online in a so-called Know-Your-Customer (KYC) process. Our customers are usually innovative financial service providers that strive for bank-grade compliance with regulatory demands like Anti-Money-Laundering (AML) provisions.

What is different about us is that we use a ‘Login with Fractal’ logic (similar to e.g. Google’s Single-Sign-On) to provide a user onboarding journey that works out of the box. That includes Fractal vetting all available authentication technology vendors on the market and connecting to a network of KYC vendors worldwide, constantly improving the journey and having customer support available.

What is included in the Free Tier KYC/AML process

We go a step further and make our fully-automated KYC/AML process free. Free for the user and free for the company. On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog (or a state-sponsored troll for that matter) — with us you do. The Fractal Free Tier process includes:

  • identification (receiving ID documents like passport or national ID)
  • authentication (checking the authenticity of the passport)
  • liveness (making the person in front of the device is live)
  • facial comparison (matching this person with the passport photo)
  • anti-money laundering checks (checking for bad guys)

Before some of you might cringe: Fractal is a user-consent-based identification service, which means that users always explicitly consent to pass on the information to the company that you are looking to sign up with. The Free Tier includes these checks, but only passes on first name, last name and email. This way we ensure authenticity but minimize data exposure.

The Fractal Free Tier KYC product is live. Go to free.fractal.id to set up your account.

Why do we offer free KYC?

Just like Skype did back in the days, we are aiming to create an ecosystem that works best if others join too. We want to enable people to easily use their Fractal ID to one-click-register with many other services. The more people already use Fractal, the more attractive the service becomes for companies.

We want to remove all barriers to go with Fractal ID. We know ourselves how hard it is to set up a new business. Enabling newly founded ventures to start out with a free solution is something we are excited about. We also want to enable use cases in which the cost of onboarding is currently preventing great services to exist or are in the way of mainstream adoption.

Of course, we hope that these early customers will switch to paid plans once they see what other features we can offer and that these users will come back to use services of companies that picked a paid plan from the beginning.

Enabling an identity layer for the internet

There is a case to be argued that the internet is great because there is anonymity. We wholeheartedly agree and hope that a big portion of the internet will stay that way.

There is a French term called sans-papiers, meaning those immigrants living in France that don’t have official documents. They are frequently subject to discrimination and enjoy few rights. In fact, mostly everywhere (not just in France) executing basic rights is tied to being able to prove your identity: You state your name in court, you show your identity to the notary when you buy a house and before you can enter a voting booth, you register … with your ID.

On the internet, we are basically all sans-papiers. We don’t know if the online petition is signed by real people or are a state-sponsored bot army. We can do all the fun things like shopping or dating, but serious things are reserved for the physical world.

This is a nuisance in places where basic infrastructure is not great but exists. But in places that lack basic infrastructure, offering a free identification infrastructure becomes a huge opportunity.

This is the case in the Philippines, where three out of four people don’t have a bank account and digital identity infrastructure barely exists. Companies like the Filipino fintech Seedbox are trying to fill the void with new online services. We are very proud to be able to support them on their quest to serve the country’s unbanked population.

The use cases for an identity layer

There are several other use cases where the Free Tier might be useful, most of which we likely don’t know about. We do know that some regulated businesses might be able to use the product like financial service companies based in South East Asia, or lightly regulated industries that sell age-restricted products online. When games have payments or betting elements age verification and identification might be needed.

We assume that identity could help prevent fraud and vandalism in the sharing economy. You might want to know that the person renting your flat is who she claims to be. Ensuring real profiles might bring more trust into recruiting and freelance platforms.

We are certain there are a bunch of use cases that we did not think about and maybe even use cases that are only viable if the cost of onboarding is zero..

Fractal Free Tier is our contribution to enabling an internet where people have an identity. We are excited to see which use cases you come up with to give rights back to the user that come along with it.

You can check out Fractal ID at free.fractal.id or start an inquiry to our sales team at sales@fractal.id. You can more about the company on our homepage. If you are an engineer, you might be looking for our technical documentation.

Fractal

One Login, global compliance

Thanks to Nele Wollert

Julian Leitloff

Written by

Co-founder & CEO of Fractal. One Login, global compliance. Curious about the interdisciplinary.

Fractal

One Login, global compliance

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