jamiemellway/fintechmodule1challenge

Homework for Fintech Bootcamp

Trulioo Case Study

Overview and Business Activities

Trulioo is a Canadian-based RegTech (short for "regulatory technology") company based out of Vancouver.

Trulioo aims to solve the problem of verifying the identity of individuals and businesses in a fast, secure, and compliant manner. This is particularly important in the digital age where on-line fraud and identity theft are on the rise.

Trulioo provides a range of identity verification solutions to help businesses comply with Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations. Its solutions enable businesses to verify the identity of their customers or web users, including their name, address, date of birth, and other personal information, as well as their business information.¹ They use social networks to verify user information and it sells its services to operators of websites such as online dating, job search sites, auction and community listings, adult only and e-mail providers.² They also provide Know Your Business (KYB) onboarding that informs clients about the businesses they work with by identifying ownership and screening company officials against global watchlists.³

By providing a reliable and secure identity verification solution, Trulioo helps businesses reduce the risk of fraud, money laundering, and other financial crimes, while also enabling them to on-board new customers quickly and easily. This can help businesses improve their customer experience and increase their revenue, while also contributing to a safer and more secure digital ecosystem.

Trulioo was founded by Stephen Ufford and Tanis Jorge in 2011.¹ Trulioo's latest funding round was a Series D for $394M on June 7, 2021 and a total of $469.74M was raised. Trulioo's valuation in December 2015 was $55.25M.⁴ When Trulioo was founded, The Radicati Group projected that the identity management market would be about $13 billion.²

FinTech Domain Trends

Regtech (short for "regulatory technology") is an emerging field that uses technology to help businesses comply with regulatory requirements

With the increasing complexity of regulations, Regtech helps businesses automate compliance processes and providing real-time monitoring and reporting. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) help automate these compliance processes and improve accuracy. Crypto exchanges are often legally obligated to keep preserve account information and knowing your customer involves staying on top of Blockchain technologies so that transactions are not used for money laundering ⁵. These technologies help regulators monitor compliance and identify potential risks in real-time.

Competitors: RelyID LLC, Honesty Online LLC, Trufina Inc. ², IDnow, Ondato ³, MyComplianceOffice

Recommendations

Trulioo could expand beyond Identity verification to include a fuller range of RegTech solutions such as Know Your Employee (KYE). By offering all KYC, KYB, and KYE solutions, Trulioo could be a one-stop-shop for businesses, reducing the need for multiple vendors.

KYE requirements are designed to ensure that individuals working for a company are not in violation of government regulations and company policy. KYE includes tracking the employee's security trades to make sure they are not committing insider trading and front running, tracking political contributions to make sure they are not exceed donation limits, pre-clearing gifts and entertainment, and managing Outside Business Activities (OBA) to check for potential conflicts of interest ⁶. Trulioo already utilizes the AI, ML, and Blockchain technologies that would be needed to expand into KYE.

References

Footnotes

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trulioo ↩ ↩²

2. https://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/print-edition/2011/01/14/trulioo-verifies-id-via-social-networks.html ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. https://www.trulioo.com/identity-verification-use-cases/onboarding/business ↩ ↩²

4. https://www.cbinsights.com/company/trulioo ↩

5. https://www.trulioo.com/industries/crypto-identity-verification/kyc ↩

6. https://mco.mycomplianceoffice.com/hubfs/brochures/MCO-KYE-Brochure-Web.pdf ↩