VALR and Veriff partnership poised for growth 

We spoke with Adick Renner,  product manager at VALR, about how Veriff and VALR have worked together to streamline customer onboarding, and what the collaboration has looked like over the past year.

Let’s start off with what your company does and what is the main goal with  identity verification?

VALR is a cryptocurrency exchange headquartered in South Africa with a global customer base, from beginners to sophisticated clients making use of our powerful API.  We offer over 60 crypto assets to trade and support several fiat currency onramps such as USD, ZAR and Kwacha. We provide a digital asset platform that allows our customers to buy, sell, store, and transfer crypto-assets seamlessly and securely. We help bridge the gap between our traditional fiat financial system and the new world of crypto-assets. Our longer term goal is to usher in a new financial paradigm that makes financial services available to the public with pricing that is fair and transparent, and with an experience that is intuitive and seamless.

As for the need for identity verification, it is quite straightforward — VALR needs to confirm the identity of every user who wants to use the wallet or trade on our platform. It’s also a regulatory requirement and by law VALR needs to be able to comply with regulatory agencies and retain records for up to five years.

What are the main challenges you face in relation to fraud & identity verification?

As crypto is disrupting the world of finance, an increasing number of people have started to trade with cryptocurrencies. Transactions between users are pseudonymous and take place in an instant. As a result, crypto transactions provide opportunities not just for honest people but also for criminals. This is why we need mostly automation for fraud detection. As the fraudsters become more sophisticated, we need to be able to take fraud prevention a step further in order to maintain the integrity of our platform.   

How did you come across Veriff’s solution? What factors made you choose to partner with Veriff?

Before Veriff we were using a different identity verification service provider. The reason we started to look for alternatives was because our partner at that time struggled with keeping up during a high activity marketing campaign when the volumes spiked. We searched Google, came across Veriff, read the case studies on your web about companies moving to Veriff and then reached out to the Veriff team. 

For us to have a better understanding of the product performance, we did live demo’s across the organization from a user as well as from the admin perspective. For product testing we imported a batch of “no results” applications into Veriff’s product to compare differences. The product performance results were great and everyone was happy.

How has the partnership been so far, and have you seen any benefits to using Veriff for identity verification? 

We have been working with Veriff for almost one year now and the partnership has been great. It’s a great collaboration because Veriff prioritizes our requests, listens to our feedback, and grows with us. We have a dedicated team assigned to us who are always willing to help and constantly check in. It’s also great to see how Veriff experiments with their product and keeps improving their offering. 

What are some of the future plans for you?

We have historically served users mainly in South Africa. However, we have now expanded internationally to serve a global customer base and provide crypto trading pairs with US Dollar Coin (USDC), rand (ZAR), and kwacha (ZMK) with an ever-expanding selection. I am sure that Veriff can support our continued expansion well as they are able to verify more than 11,000 documents across the world and cover more than 230 countries and territories. We are excited about our growth plans for 2023 and beyond, as we aim to offer the best possible service to our users, while always remaining compliant with regulations.