Veriff and Juancho Te Presta: powering one of South America’s fastest-growing fintechs

About Juancho Te Presta

Juancho Te Presta is one of Colombia’s fastest-growing and leading fintechs. 

The company uses state-of-the-art technology to help people progress and fulfil their dreams using easy-to-request and quick-to-disburse financial products. This means that they are able to help employees, pensioners, students, and especially gig workers to apply for loans and other financial products. 

Juancho Te Presta aims to increase financial inclusion and promote credit deepening through 100% digital credit solutions. The company prides itself on working closely with, and for, the under-served female community in Colombia. They also have different scorecards and price skews to attract more women. 

Juancho Te Presta belongs to the Colombia Fintech Association, which brings together more than 300 similar companies. What they all have in common is that they generate confidence and peace of mind for customers because they know that they are acquiring credit with a company that has strong legal standards and principles.

What business problem did Veriff solve for Juancho Te Presta?

Juancho Te Presta started working with Veriff in November 2022. They were using a different provider to carry out electronic identification but found that their needs weren’t being met. 

In particular, they were looking to solidify their IDV needs with an all-in-one provider that would help to better prevent and control potential fraud. They were looking to put in place face matching, biometric identification and fraud alerts, as well as the ability to verify the validity of the customer’s documents and ensure the security of customer data. This combination was not something that their existing provider could offer. 

As Juan Esteban Saldarriaga, founder and CEO of Juancho Te Presta, explained: “Previously, we were working with a different provider in order to help with our verification processes. But as our business grew, we realised we needed to be able to lean on a company that could offer an all-in-one solution.”

Their overall desire was to lower their number of fraud cases, meet compliance regulations and prevent lost revenue.

What made the difference to Juancho Te Presta when choosing Veriff? 

When researching alternatives, Juancho Te Presta discovered that Veriff offered products with a much larger scope than others in the market. In particular, Juancho Te Presta opted to make the most of Veriff’s biometric offering and ability to verify identity documents in real time and detect fake and tampered documents using AI-powered ID verification software.

“Biometric authentication, which helps us to automatically check if a new user is already on our system under another account, is one of the most powerful Veriff tools that we use,” Saldarriaga said.

Today, every customer applying for a loan must now pass Veriff’s ID verification before their application is progressed. When a customer is flagged as a potential fraud case, their application is rejected. 

When they’re approved but their application triggers certain flags at Veriff, those flags are reviewed by Juancho Te Presta’s operations team. They make the last call on whether to continue the review of the application.

This, for Juancho Te Presta, was the perfect balance of outsourcing the majority of the process but retaining control themselves, and made all of the difference when selecting a partner. 

What was the immediate impact of implementing Juancho Te Presta? 

The main problem that Juancho Te Presta had faced in the past was that many users were unable to progress in the identity verification process. Using Veriff’s tools, the numbers of those stuck in the system dropped almost 50% in the first week alone – from 29% of those approved daily to 18%. 

Their total fraud, meanwhile, dropped to below 1%, which is an enormous feat. This is in part thanks to the use of Veriff’s video recording feature, which helps to provide more insights about what is going on in the background during a customer verification. 

Juancho Te Presta also reported that they were impressed with the speed of implementation and the support offered throughout the process of switching from their other provider. 

“Just one month after onboarding us, Veriff’s products and offerings were fully implemented into our tech stack,” Saldarriaga said. “The switching process was painless and enabled us to realize value from Veriff’s products incredibly quickly.

“Our fraud levels have dropped to below 1% now, which is very impressive. This is in huge part thanks to the use of Veriff’s background video recording feature, which helps us understand more about what else might be going on during a customer verification.”

About Veriff 

Veriff is the preferred identity verification partner for the world’s biggest and best digital companies, including pioneers in fintech, crypto, gaming, and the mobility sectors. We provide advanced technology, deep insights, and expertise from our foundation in digital-first Estonia and honed in leading the digital identity revolution. The partner of choice for businesses who need to rapidly and effortlessly verify online users from anywhere in the world, Veriff delivers the widest possible identity document coverage. 

By supporting government-issued IDs from more than 230 issuing countries and territories and with our intelligent decision engine which analyzes thousands of technological and behavioral variables Veriff enables trust from the first hello. With more than 550 people from 60 different nationalities and offices in the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, and Estonia, we are dedicated to helping businesses and individuals build a safer and more secure online world.