Of course not. A radically-different world is just decades away and it won’t be pretty for any of us, Estonian or crustacean. Discussing this at the office, we felt helpless. 

Then we noticed tons of plastic grocery bags in the kitchen. That’s on top of plastic trash bags we buy. Veriff is an almost 300-person startup that aims to be a force for good (we protect online businesses and their customers from identity fraud). Our plastic adds up. Not good.

So we decided to change. No more plastic bags. It’s not a radical move, we know. But it’s a trigger moment, something to build on. We’ll lighten our plastic burden while paving the way for more steps. Which will also add up. 

Below are some ways we’ll lighten our footprint. What do you think? What are your ideas for reducing environmental impact? Any tips or tricks that reduce your plastic bag use? Put it on social media this summer, using the hashtag #GoodbyeBadBag so we can see what’s on your mind!

count how many plastic bags appear in your house in one week and share it.

2. Do you have plastic bags at home/work? Reuse them.

Give small bags to pet owners, so they can buy fewer new poop bags

Wash dirty plastic bags. You don’t have to throw them away immediately.

3. Didn’t find any plastic bags today? Yay!

Opt for reusable and biodegradable bags for trash. Shopping bags, veggie/fruit bags, etc. will do.

Keep your shopping bag and veggie/fruit bag in the pocket, car, or near the front door

4. Refuse plastic bags from cashiers and store owners.

Use other alternatives: baskets, cardboard boxes, backpacks etc. 

Weigh different fruit and vegetables separately, but put them in the same bag

We read the news, too. Global warming is really global heating. A million species are going extinct because of human activity. Oh well. It’s just some bugs and fish other icky beings you wouldn’t want to share a bed with anyway. Right? 

#GoodbyeBadBag: A Summer Without Plastic Bags

Veriff is excited to announce its partnership with Y combinator backed Tanzanian startup NALA Money (NALA). Veriff will be supporting NALA in offering secure access to financial services via reliable and inclusive identity verification.

Building on the success of their personal finance app, which is used by over 250,000 users across Tanzania, NALA’s new service is tailored to the needs of the African diaspora. To fulfil their mission of creating economic opportunity, NALA plans to address the hidden barriers that prevent the African community from accessing traditional financial services safely and seamlessly. Their decision to partner with Veriff is a step toward providing equal access to all.

As NALA’s CEO Benjamin Fernandes explains, “Over 70% of remittances sent to Africa are still sent in cash, but over 85% of financial institutions now have a digital presence. We want to tackle the pain points which limit access to digital finance tools for the African community in the UK. This is especially important as society shifts to operating ‘digital first’ with more online transactions taking place than ever before.  It’s exciting and reassuring to see the proactive steps Veriff is taking to build a more inclusive verification process. It was one of the things that really stood out for us when choosing a KYC partner.”

Veriff’s co-founder and Chief Product Officer Janer Gorohhov explains: “We can verify over 9,000 government issued IDs from more than 190 countries, including over 50 countries from Africa. This internal knowhow gives us greater visibility and control to tackle identity verification issues at a variety of levels. We also use a diversified dataset to train our models, and our face comparison accuracy is the same for any ethnicity or document origin.”

Veriff is focused on finding solutions for various inputs and content that users upload to the identity verification platform. The company has developed adaptive decision making thresholds to assess lower quality images on ID documents fairly, mitigating the bias caused by differing document specimen qualities. Also, if the automated decision is inconclusive, Veriff has a team of specially trained manual fallback specialists with over 30 nationalities represented. This allows for specialization, domain expertise, accuracy and speed in the facial recognition process when algorithms are inconclusive.

Last month NALA announced it had become an Electronic Money Directive (EMD) agent through a partnership with Modulr, which provides an array of financial services, including but not limited to international payments. They will be rolling out their beta offering gradually from February 2021 for UK-based customers sending money to Kenya and Uganda. People can sign up for early access at www.iwantnala.com.

Veriff announces its partnership with a Y combinator backed Tanzanian startup NALA Money (NALA). Veriff will be supporting NALA in offering secure access to financial services via reliable and inclusive identity verification.

Veriff announces its partnership with Y Combinator backed Tanzanian startup NALA Money (NALA). Veriff will be supporting NALA in offering secure access to financial services via reliable and inclusive identity verification.

An announcement of the partnership between Veriff's online identity verification and NALA, who offer finanical services to the African diaspora in the UK.

NALA takes their service to another level with Veriff for identity verification

 Veriff, a global identity verification provider, is partnering with ChekMarc, a new global social media platform that connects people all over the world, to ensure online users are who they say they are. With this partnership, Veriff adds an extra layer of safety and security to the online platform. Through a simple, hassle-free process that takes less than a minute and needs only a valid government-issued ID or passport, users will have a “V” displayed next to their User ID informing the community that they are a trusted, verified member.

Founded by Marc Kaplan, CEO of ChekMarc and former partner at Deloitte, and Vrinda Johnson, COO and former Executive Director at Russell Reynolds Associates and PwC, ChekMarc is available to anyone over the age of 18 and is accessible in over 35 languages.

“ChekMarc is very pleased to be partnering with Veriff on our ID Verification needs,” said Marc Kaplan, CEO of ChekMarc. “ID Verification is a critical component of providing a safe and secure experience for our community. Veriff’s commitment to providing the highest quality product and its relentless focus on being the best in the industry gave us great comfort in partnering with them.”

The platform lets people all over the world connect one-on-one in a more safe and secure manner. It can be used to start a new career or business, improve leadership skills or make business connections. On a personal level, it can be used to strive toward new fitness goals, open a community gathering spot or hospitality attraction or to learn about writing a book. It’s a positive, uplifting platform to connect people with each other. 

“Granting safe access to consumers and businesses online is critical for ChekMarc and its customers. With our automated identity verification service, Veriff is helping ChekMarc to remove identify fraud and trust issues that are unfortunately so prevalent online today,” said Janer Gorohhov, co-founder and CPO of Veriff. “We’re excited to partner with ChekMarc as they create a safe, positive online forum that so many consumers crave today.”

Veriff is a global online identity verification company that enables organizations to build trust with their customers through intelligent, accurate and automated online IDV.  The largest database on the market, Veriff’s intelligent decision engine can analyze thousands of technological and behavioral variables in seconds, matching people to more than 9,000 government-issued IDs from over 190 countries. Founded in 2015, Veriff serves a global portfolio of organizations across fintech, crypto and mobility sectors.

Founded in 2020, ChekMarc is a free, global platform that creates and enables members to foster impactful one-on-one connections in a secure setting. We’re a new global community where connections are fostered in a more safe and meaningful way. Strict guidelines and monitoring allow for a positive experience. ChekMarc is currently available in over 35 languages, is both web-based as well as available as an app for iOS and Android. For more information, visit ChekMarc.com or download the ChekMarc app.

Linking up with innovative new services is something Veriff was built for, and ChekMarc are a perfect example, as they look to bring more security and positivity to social media with a trusted identity verification platform.

An announcement of the partnership between online identity verification provider Veriff and exciting new social media platform ChekMarc.

ChekMarc integrates Veriff identity verification to revolutionize social media

Veriff, the AI-driven global identity verification service provider is partnering with Kueski, one of the fastest-growing fintech platforms in Latin America. With this partnership, Veriff expands its business in the Latin American market by helping Kueski’s clients to have safe and smooth access to financial services. 

Kueski is a tech company that promotes digital financial access in Mexico by bringing trustworthy and simple financial services to people underserved by financial institutions. By offering microloans in a completely digital way, Kueski grants first-time formal credit access to people with no credit history. 

Granting digital access to financial services comes with compliance requirements and risks, both for Kueski and its customers. With its automated identity verification service, Veriff is helping Kueski to leverage the risks, stay compliant and onboard their clients smoothly without compromising safety.

Janer Gorohhov, co-founder and CPO of Veriff, says: “Having a fast and reliable identity verification process is essential for improving customer trust. With the help of our technology, Kueski can provide a frictionless onboarding service for many more customers and scale their business. We’re delighted to have a solid partner in Kueski when entering the Latin American market.” 

Sahari Cabello, Head of Kueski Cash & Credit Risk: “Our top priority is to give our customers financial solutions in a trustworthy environment. We have implemented a multi-layer fraud prevention framework, where Veriff is a key element to avoid identity theft and protect people from fraudsters abuses. Since accuracy, great customer service and high technical experience are paramount to us, we decided to go with Veriff.”

In Latin America, 48% of the adult population is excluded from having access to financial services, and according to the Financial Inclusion Survey made by the CNBV (Mexico’s equivalent of the SEC), only 21.6% of the population in Mexico has a credit card while in the US it represents 91.1% of the total population. The lack of financial inclusion could be associated with the high informal economy in Mexico. Currently, more than 57% of the working population in Mexico is under informal employment, which represents 22.7% of the GDP as stated by INEGI. Informality causes consumers to avoid financial services because they want to fly under the tax radar.

Veriff is a global online identity verification company that enables organizations to build trust with their customers through intelligent, accurate and automated online identity verification.  The largest database on the market, Veriff’s intelligent decision engine can analyze thousands of technological and behavioral variables in seconds, matching people to more than 9,000 government-issued IDs from over 190 countries. Founded in 2015, Veriff serves a global portfolio of organizations across fintech, crypto and mobility sectors. To learn more, visit www.veriff.com.

Kueski is a company based in Mexico, with the mission to facilitate the financial lives of people living in Mexico. Kueski is one of the fastest-growing fintech platforms in Latin America. The company’s Machine Learning capabilities allow them to evaluate thousands of unconventional variables to determine the financial profile and needs of our customers and provide them the best experience possible. Kueski has disbursed more than 3.8 million loans. Kueski’s products include Kueski  Pay - the largest Buy Now Pay Later service in Mexico, which allows people to finalize a purchase online without the need of a card; 

Kueski Cash, which is the largest online consumer loan company in Mexico and Kueski Up which is an earned wage advance (EWA) product that allows employees to advance their payroll at no cost.

Veriff is proud to announce that we're now offering our game-changing identity verification technology to Kueski, expanding financial services to those that need it most. 

Veriff is proud to offer its game-changing identity verification technology to fast-growing fintech, Kueski, to expand access to financial services in Latin America, while stopping identity fraud.

An announcement of the partnership between online identity verification provider Veriff and Latin America based financial services company, Kueski.

Kueski deploys online ID verification to expand financial services

It's always difficult, in any industry, to predict what might happen in the next 12 months. Particularly after a year like 2020. However, every business has to be forward-thinking and look ahead to what's around the corner in the next year or two for themselves and their industry at large.

We decided to put two key questions to two of our smartest and longest-serving people - Tiit Paananen, VP of Engineering, and Kreet Prants, Head of Verification Operations.

What trends do you see in identity verification in 2021?

What are the main challenges in the identity verification business in 2021?

We've included their answers written in full below, as well as videos of both interviews. Enjoy!

Identity Verification Trends in 2021 - Tiit Paananen

There are a couple of interesting trends. First maybe, the mobility and logistics industries need to lower their operational costs, and build more interfaces between their end-users and themselves in a way they’ve never done before, so there are lots of new use cases. Also, earlier use cases that used to be physical, now moving into the virtual world. So I’m seeing a continuous trend in the mobility sector, where people now have access to the sharing economy, and also the logistics sector where traditional owners need to rethink their way of business because the share-economy is still moving and continues to move and everything has to be pretty much contactless. 

It’s not only because of the pandemic, it’s also because of efficiency. Often, identity verification can provide an even higher level of trust between the client and the end-user.

And the other interesting trend is actually something that is not maybe on everyone’s radar yet, but it will be. The boom of cryptocurrencies and the instruments built on top of cryptocurrencies, like smart contracts, or decentralised finance, is in rapid development and it’s not only a pyramid scheme, there are actually use cases that provide value and allow people to share liquidity that is disconnected from the inflation pressure or just the overall volatility of the currency markets. You can balance that out very well in the decentralised financing world and build instruments that actually provide value. 

I think the entry barriers will be lower, and more people will get into this, which means that it will grow, and if there is more liquidity then there are bigger returns as well.

I think the biggest challenge in our business is still building trust online. Remote identity verification, or online identity verification, is definitely here to stay but it doesn’t yet feel so natural when you’re doing a transaction and suddenly you’re asked for either your ID card or passport. I feel that in 2021 it will be part of our lives in a way almost like when you show your driver’s license to the police when they stop you. I believe there's still work to do to make the flow more easy, faster, in real-time for end-users, but if end-users are getting into a habit of proving their identity online in use cases that they see bring value, then they will actually appreciate that and that lowers our friction in getting more business for Veriff. 

There’s a great analogy here actually - after 9/11, airline industries were really in trouble and they introduced a number of measures to increase the feeling of safety, and protocols that were necessary to do in security checks. After that, the industry has grown multiple times, and we’ve all got used to using an airplane as a transport method even for short hauls. This is something we need to do for remote identity verification - to introduce measures that build trust and show that your efforts approving your identity is actually bringing value for yourself.

Identity Verification Trends in 2021 - Kreet Prants

I think we've seen a lot of new types of businesses move their services online, and this also means that there is quite a big increase of people who are now having their first interaction with an online service. This brings a big responsibility to the businesses to make it as intuitive as possible for people to access these online services, and I think it’s especially valid also for online identity verification providers to be this intuitive partner in giving access to the online services.

I can see people being much more aware of their rights when it comes to their data. Privacy concerns are increasing, and I can also see that people are more aware of company’s responsibilities when it comes to protecting their data. Again, relating to online identity verification providers, there’s a demand for companies to be up front, and transparent about how much information they use, how they process it, and how they store it. Data privacy is a big trend in 2021.

We spoke to two members of Veriff's leadership team about what they see coming up in the identity verification industry in the next 12 months, and what challenges Veriff might face in 2021.

An interview with Tiit Paananen, VP of Engineering, and Kreet Prants, Head of Verification Operations, about their predictions for the online identity verification business in 2021.

Online Identity Verification Trends in 2021

When you watch a movie, it seems as though every other person has got a fake ID of some sort. They are able to gleefully use it to travel the world, fool authorities, fraudulently move money and generally do whatever they please. 

From McLovin in Superbad, to high-schooler Charlie Bartlett, Brian from The Breakfast Club, James Bond and even Doctor Who, everyone is at it! 

Now, some of these fake IDs are obtained ‘legally’ through government agencies, while others are procured through highly suspicious networks. There are also a variety of reasons for why people would want fake IDs; Brian from The Breakfast Club simply wants to vote, McLovin is trying to buy booze for his friends and Doctor Who is normally saving the world. 

Most of these reasons are relatively harmless, but here at Veriff we know how dangerous digital fraud can be. What if McLovin suddenly decided to get into deepfakes, or if Jason Bourne got greedy and tried to embezzle a bank or a business? Would our Veriff systems stand up to the task and recognize that their IDs are fake?

We’ve already ascertained that our systems are robust enough to withstand an attack from McLovin, but what about Jason Bourne? He had a veritable arsenal of fake passports in his back pocket! Would the Veriff automation systems detect them before it was too late? Let’s find out!

If you haven’t seen them (and why not?), the Jason Bourne movies are a fast-paced series of action films based on a character created by author Robert Ludlum. The character, Jason Bourne (played by Matt Damon), is a CIA assassin/spy who is suffering from dissociative amnesia and when we first meet him, he is washed up on a fishing boat with no idea as to who he is. 

The search for his real identity creates the framework of the movies, with his first clue being the number of a safety deposit box in Zurich. When he visits said bank, Jason finds money in various currencies, passports, and identity documents from several different countries as well as a handgun. 

Taking the money and the identity documents with him, Jason then spends the next three movies travelling across France, Greece, India, Italy, Russia and America in search of who he is. It’s an espionage adventure at its best!

As we mentioned, Jason doesn’t find just one identity – he finds several! In the wrong hands, these documents could be used for all sorts of unsavory activities so let’s take a closer look and see if they could get past Veriff’s automated systems…

American Passport – While at first glance, the American-issued passport looks pretty real, when we look at it in more detail there are a number of discrepancies that our systems would definitely pick up on. For example, the watermark is incorrect, the size of the identity photo isn’t quite right, and the font usage is slightly ‘off’. The numbers and general information appear to be correct, but this wouldn’t be enough to fool most systems. 

Russian Passport – Again, this is a pretty good fake, but on closer inspection the identity photo is wrongly in color as opposed to being in monochrome, the serial number is missing from the bottom, the stamp is in the wrong place and the general formatting of the information is incorrect. Not only this, but in Russian his name is written as ‘Ащьф ЛШТШФУМ’ which is actually a combination of nonsensical Russian letters with no real meaning. Nonsensical names like this raise suspicion and can very easily lead to an ID document being queried more closely, if not rejected. 

Canadian passport – The issuing date on this passport is 19/04/1993 which actually was the year that a new style of passport was introduced in Canada, that included some unique features (like watermarks or holographic images) that prevented replication and alteration. Jason Bourne’s Canadian passport doesn’t appear to have these features and would thus be quickly picked up by Veriff’s robust automated processes. 

Brazilian passport – Now this is a pretty good fake, with the props department from the movies evidently taking great care over this one. However, the date of birth is in the wrong format, and the ‘valid until’ date and ‘issued on’ date are in wrong order. Even these small details are enough to raise alarms. 

As the above suggests, when an identity document goes through the Veriff decision engine, every element of it is analyzed. From the numbers, to the actual context behind the information, to the formatting of the document. Our automated systems take the whole document into consideration. 

Our technologically advanced system is able to do all of this in a matter of moments, cutting out the need for the human eye and any mistakes that may cause.

It seems pretty clear to say that Jason Bourne should count himself lucky that Veriff wasn’t on his case when he was travelling the world, as he certainly wouldn’t have got very far! His passports would definitely not have stood up to our scrutiny. 

It’s also worth mentioning that most of Bourne’s documents were issued in the late 80s/early 90s and identity documents have become much more sophisticated since then. Biometric security chips, UV-visible imaging, and microprinting have all made identity documents much harder to fake, although that’s not to say that some people aren’t trying!

Next up, bored high-schooler and forger Charlie Bartlett.

In our series looking at famous examples of fake IDs in pop culture, we take a look at the many passports of Matt Damon's super spy, Jason Bourne.

A blog looking at Jason Bourne's fake identity documents and how they'd measure up against modern online identity verification technology.

We've already covered Veriff's first hackathon in two blogs - an interview with Kalev Rundu, who spearheaded the hackathon, and another interview with the winning team, Canary Releases. This time, we speak to two other teams, whose ideas are already being implemented and celebrated within Veriff.

We interviewed Ibrahim Al-Taie, whose team started work on our soon-to-be-released product Face Match, and Mikk Kelder, whose team created a game to be played while waiting to be verified. Let's get into the details with them.

Can you explain the idea behind your hackathon projects?

Ibrahim: Essentially, it's authenticating an identity by looking at a person’s face! The typical workflow is to verify a user's identity the first time with their document - what we call identity verification - then in the future, utilize those person’s images to re-authenticate their identity. We can use the original verification session images and data as a base/reference for us to go back to and compare with new data points and inputs. So for the new flow, the end user will only take a selfie, and Veriff matches it with the existing data the our clients provide about the user’s identity.

A preview image of how 'Face Match' would work

Mikk: The idea came when I was ordering food from Wolt (a food delivery app), and to keep their customers happy and not bored while waiting they've added a game to the order status screen. I didn’t even notice how fast the 10-15 minutes went by. Since we also have clients waiting to get verified sometimes, then I thought why not bring them the same joy.

Was your idea a long time in the works, or brand new?

I: The idea came to mind around the hackathon itself, so totally brand new.

M: It was brand new, when Kalev started the whole hackathon process I literally had no clue what I should do, but I knew that I wanted to do something cool.

Did you plan ahead to deliver it in the hackathon?

I: Not really, I simply prepared a 2 page slide deck to go with my pitch. The rest came after, from configurations to the final product.

M: No, only the pitch, everything else came organically. We got our team together 2 minutes before the announcement of the teams, so this started to create a little stress already!

Who pitched it, and how was it preparing that pitch?

I: I pitched the idea myself at the start of the hackathon, and thankfully I had an amazing team (Ana Turkina and Kristjan Kuppart) who were interested in taking part, from idea to product!

Ana, Ibrahim & Kristjan, who worked together to start creating Face Match

It was thrilling, as it was my first hackathon experience! However, I was excited and determined to get this product going. As I see (and thankfully the judges saw as well) a huge potential in this product providing value to our company, customers, and end users overall!

M: I did the pitch, and Anett Tomson helped a lot, she gave me some really amazing ideas how to make the pitch more memorable. Our pitch was definitely one that people remembered.

How did you approach the intense timeframe - did you have a structure, or you just dived in and started development?

I: It was tough. I’m a Solutions Engineer here in Veriff, and I already had calls scheduled with clients and deadlines to deliver upon. This all meant that I needed to wear multiple hats at the same time. From a different perspective though, I had an amazing team and we were able to work on different aspects at the same time together. 

One thing we were very lucky with, is how amazing our product and engineering teams are! In reality, we didn’t want to reinvent the wheel, just re-purpose it’s existing components differently!

So we wrote zero code to deliver our product, we simply took existing components from our product, and repackaged/repurposed them in a different way, and worked on our overall market needs.

M: The first day we all sat down and started brainstorming what we wanted to actually do. How was the game going to look, how the mechanics should work, etc. After the meeting, Kristel Roosimaa (one of our excellent designers) started to design the icons and other elements of the game, and Artjom started work on the game itself. Anett and I were the hype guys in our gang.

In practical terms, what’s the major benefit?

I: There's a need in the market to re-authenticate a user's identity after their initial verification. This is in cases where our client already knows the user's identity, but wants to make sure it’s them again. Some use-cases include: a user is withdrawing a large amount of money from their account, adding a new bank account to receive money to, making new and potentially suspicious log-ins, claiming their account has been taken over, etc. 

To solve this with another full verification introduces not only a high cost, but also a larger further effect on potential SLAs, and end-user friction. With our product, the end user only needs to take a selfie! We can then check if their face is a match with the existing information or not. It's a lot simpler!

M: Besides the game itself, which is awesome, the biggest benefit was working together with a team that wasn’t connected by the day-to-day stuff that we do here in Veriff. It was a great demonstration of what people who don't necessarily interact daily, or even weekly, can achieve when they have a shared goal.

Screenshots of the waiting game built by Mikk's team

Finally - there’ll likely be another hackathon sooner rather than later, got any ideas already?

I: We’ve got some ideas. Just stay tuned for the next hackathon pitch!

M: A magician never reveals his tricks, but next time we're in it to win it!

We've got a lot of exciting open positions right now, throughout Veriff, so if you'd like to be in Ibrahim or Mikk's team for the next hackathon then why not see if there's something for you? You could be a Veriffian in the making!

We speak to two more teams from Veriff's first hackathon - one who started creating a brand new product called Face Match, and the other who made a game you can play while you wait to be verified!

A blog looking at two teams from Veriff's first hackathon in December 2020. One team started work on Face Match, a re-verification product, and the other built a game for while you wait to be verified.

Veriff's First Hackathon - Two More Exciting Entries

Before you read this, you might want to be sitting down. It's big news.

As part of our continued journey to offer the best possible identity verification service out there, Veriff have today updated our plans and pricing to give our clients more flexibility and choice to align their online identity verification needs to their business.

Our Starter Plans are available in three tiers, starting at $49 per month, and is the first identity verification model to provide instant access to enterprise-level risk labeling — critical data that provides insight into the signs of fraudulent behavior of individual verifications. With this level of insight and data, including video of the verification session, organizations can ensure their customers are protected from identity theft and risk online.

In the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated businesses’ digital transformation efforts, with more transactions moving online than ever before. This spike in online activity gave way to more opportunities for fraud, which can have a significant economic impact on consumers and businesses. Veriff’s Starter Plans enable SMBs to build trust with their customers by simplifying and accelerating digital transactions with intelligent, accurate, and automated online IDV, which can verify more than 9,000 government-issued IDs from over 190 countries. 

“It's never been more important to know your customers, employees, and partners are who they say they are,” said Janer Gorohhov, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Veriff. “As organizations face tougher IDV regulations and look to mitigate fraud risk, we want to ensure they have an option for safe, reliable, and instant identity verification and KYC compliance. Our Starter Plans model will help SMBs get up to speed and compliant quickly, and with different pricing levels, organizations of all sizes can have IDV capabilities that are scalable as they grow.” 

Veriff’s Starter Plans includes three tiers — Essential ($49 per month), Plus ($129 per month) and Premium ($249 per month) — allowing SMBs to select the most effective option, and providing the opportunity to grow. Features vary by tier but compliance is included at all levels; Premium members receive risk labeling included in their subscription, which is available as an add-on for the Essential and Plus levels.

Finally, Veriff will host a webinar on March 4th, following up on this news and looking into why identity verification isn't one-size-fits-all. The webinar is called 'How to find the right identity verification service for your business' and you can book your spot today.

Veriff will be hosting an exclusive webinar on March 4th called 'How to find the right identity verification service for your business', looking at why IDV isn't one-size-fits-all, and why you need to choose your provider carefully. Don't miss it!

Want to know how to choose the right IDV provider?

Join our exclusive Veriff Voices Webinar!

Today, we've launched our new plans and pricing for our Starter Plans, from just $49 per month for industry-leading identity verification services.

Veriff announces the launch of it's new Starter plans and pricing for its identity verification service, offering full KYC compliance.

Veriff is thrilled to welcome Amish Mody, who has joined as our new Chief Financial Officer. He brings a wealth of know-how and experience to our team and is excited to help us continue our rapid growth in a scalable and sustainable way.

Before joining Veriff, Amish spent 5+ years in Monese as VP of Finance, responsible for the accounting, financial planning and analysis, business intelligence and treasury functions. Prior to that he had 10 years experience as an investment banker, working on mergers and acquisition, capital raising and strategic advisory projects in Central and Eastern Europe.

I spoke to Amish about his experiences in Monese, what excited him about the prospect of joining Veriff, and what’s first up for him to tackle in his new role.

Amish, you’re coming to Veriff from Monese, and with a lot of experience in finance in your career, what inspired the move into the identity verification sector?

I’ve seen identity verification so much from the client side in my previous workplace, and how critical IDV is to businesses. I’ve also seen the rapid digitisation of IDV, moving away from offline, face-to-face verification. It’s so important to get it right, to offer verification which is fast with an excellent response time with equally good quality. 

The market is also growing rapidly, and there are so many industries who need these services, beyond the traditional ones like financial services. It excited me to be in a growing and critical market, to be part of that.

The other reason, the ‘why Veriff?’, was that in my conversations with Kaarel, Janer, Indrek, and other key managers, it was wonderful to see the energy and enthusiasm they have for this product. So aside from the industry, it was obvious Veriff has a wonderful team of people, who’ll work together to grow Veriff in it’s next phase.

Do you feel there’s any specific piece of insight you’ll bring with you from Monese that you learned from being on the side of the client?

The understanding of how mission critical identity verification is, and how important it is for clients that we get it right. It’s technically quite a challenge to integrate a new partner in this way - maybe not on the product side but for clients - the simpler we can make this process the better. And perhaps more pertinently, I know how important the financial aspect is to clients, when we talk about pricing, product or payment terms, I’ve seen what’s considered in the decision process.

And what was the history between yourself and Veriff? How much did you know previously?

I’d met Kaarel previously, during earlier fundraising for Veriff. Estonia is a small community and I’m good friends with a few investors in Veriff anyway, so I had a fair understanding of the company earlier.

Was there anything else that attracted you to join the company?

In my previous workplace, we’d actually been through a lot of the experiences that Veriff is now facing. We’d raised several rounds of financing, grew the organisation multiple times, and brought the financial side to a mature state. So I feel bringing that knowledge, and the positive steps we took on that journey (and perhaps learning from the missteps) was appealing.

The existing finance team in Veriff is already very good and has laid a fantastic foundation, but the function hasn’t been an overall priority in the company before. This is completely understandable, product is the key focus and should be, but in order to grow and scale you need to shift some of that focus on to the financial and operational scalability. It’s exciting to me to come here and challenge myself, and see if the knowledge I’ve gained can help Veriff to continue growing.

You spoke a little about fundraising, as you’ve experienced it a lot previously, what’s the work that needs to go in when you’re raising investment for your company?

It’s mostly about taking the good traction that a company already has, and putting this into an understandable framework for investors. The product isn’t the only thing that excites investors, it’s also crucially the unit economics and finding the sustainable balance of growth and burn. 

Finally, what’s in your in-tray as you start work with Veriff? What are the priorities?

For me, it’s growing the finance team to strengthen what is already a great base. Beyond the standard accounting functions, it needs to support the growth of the company, more on a planning and analysis side in both management and departmental levels.

I’d also like to strengthen the thinking behind commercial and financial data, to bring it forward and more into focus, to better define the key KPIs and how we can track them regularly in the future. Implementing tools and processes that enable Veriff to grow and scale isn’t an overnight job, some of it will likely take a year or more to implement, but we’re in a great position to start working on it.

Veriff is looking for a Senior Financial Planning & Analysis Manager to join Amish in Tallinn and be part of Veriff's growing finance team. If you're curious, take a look at the job description below - you might be a Veriffian in the making!

Would you like to join Amish's growing team?

Veriff welcomes a brand new CFO, Amish Mody, and talks to him about what brought him to Veriff, his time with Monese, and what he plans to tackle first in his new role.

An interview with Veriff's new Chief Finance Officer, Amish Mody.

Amish Mody joins Veriff as our new Chief Finance Officer

Joining me in a cozy café while it gently snows outside is Luis Barragan, one of Veriff’s Team Leads. As most of the interviews I’ve done have had to rely on video-calling, it was nice to be able to have a conversation in-person, and on top of that, Luis is someone with a plethora of interests so there was plenty to talk about.

To get readers up to speed, could you tell me a little about the history of your career path? What were you doing before you joined Veriff?

Well first off, I’m originally from Barquisimeto (a city in Venezuela), which is where I grew up and studied in my early years. And speaking of studying, I was attending university and failing in a certain subject that was delaying my graduation. Since I was failing in this subject, I figured I’d try to excel in something else to make up for it.

With that in mind, I decided to create a startup project, basically thinking that if I wasn’t going to be great in formal education, I would try to be better with hands-on learning. At the time I was studying electronic engineering and I had friends studying mechanical engineering, so it just made sense to put those things together and build a robot (something like what Boston Dynamics was doing, but more simplistic). Together with my friends, we founded an NGO and gathered support from the university and eventually got our own office and computers, and then started to pitch the idea to companies to gain more funding. 

In the end, it turned into a full organization with recruitment and hiring, to the point that I knew it would survive even if I left. Funnily enough, during my time there we never actually finished building a robot, and the generation after me switched up the idea and moved to cars instead of robots.

Although the robot was never completed, I did end up building the software for it – which is how I entered the field of software engineering. Knowing that all I really needed was a computer and internet, I officially switched my career to software engineering around 2005 and then moved to capital of Venezuela, Caracas. 

I began working as an SAP consultant doing Java and working on tight deadlines with a lot of challenges. Through this I got my first taste of working on projects with people all around the world. Although I could have stayed in Venezuela, I had a lot of options available to me, so I decided instead to head to Europe. After investigating several different places, I found the best opportunity available in Estonia, so I moved to Tartu in 2007.

In Tartu I worked as a consultant for several years, working on projects that were located in different areas, but after 4 years I eventually became bored with the job and thought about moving to somewhere new. Before I could leave though, I discovered the startup GrabCAD and ended up working there for 7 years. GrabCAD was a great experience, and so far my longest place of employment to date.  

All in all, you’ve been in Estonia for around 14 years. How has it been adapting to such a different climate? Both physically and socially.

It honestly hasn’t been that hard to adapt to Estonia, but perhaps that’s because I kept myself really busy for at least the first 5 years, giving me no time to think about adapting. In addition to working my main job, we (my wife and I) formed an NGO to fight against climate change and promote environmental consciousness. We were writing articles, hosting events, organizing film festivals, etc. for 2-3 years until we eventually ran out of energy to continue it the way we wished to.

During this time I formed another startup as well. The startup was about creating something that was a kind of mix of Spotify and Endomondo to assist people who enjoy running with music. I wanted something that would analyze how a person runs, know when they’re exhausted and play music accordingly. Unfortunately, due to a real lack of time, I had to abandon this project.

In addition to work, I should also mention that sport in general was a great way to keep myself in a positive headspace, usually basketball or just general fitness work.

How did you originally find out about Veriff?

Well, at GrabCAD I was kind of hitting the ceiling of where I could progress, so I took a couple of months off and started looking into different opportunities. I had heard a little about Veriff, mostly word of mouth, and a friend invited me to a Veriff opening party. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make the party, so instead Tiit Paananen (Veriff’s VP of Engineering) and a recruiter met me at a coffee shop – much like the one we’re in now – and I told them what I was looking for and they told me about what Veriff could offer.

It turned out that the company size was/is around the size I was looking for. It was a company that felt established without also being too “corporate”. In addition, I was excited about what Veriff was trying to achieve and I wanted to be a part of that.

You’ve been a Team Lead in Veriff for a couple years now. How do you feel things have changed over the years?

When I first joined Veriff, I think there were around 30 people in the office. The place itself was small, only 1 floor. For me, it was pretty great because I could easily say “hi” or “what’s up?” to everyone there. In general, the atmosphere was very friendly – it pretty much exactly what I wanted. I could easily see and talk to the marketing team or the development team, or anyone else really. 

Coming from GrabCAD, Veriff took a very different approach to growth. At GrabCAD, as soon as the company started to grow, it branched out to other locations in different countries – distributing different departments to different areas. Since there wasn’t much of a market at all in Tallinn for GrabCAD, it made sense to branch out to other areas. At Veriff, the departments and focus has stayed mostly centred in Tallinn which has also helped make it more open and visual to the general public within Estonia.

As we’ve grown, the amount of noise and activity has probably multiplied 10x. Going from 30 to 300 or so people, it can be exhausting, but also exciting. With so much happening, there can often be a fear of missing out on things. So many game nights or activities or everything else in-between that you want to attend, but don’t have the time for. 

Even though you’ve clearly got your hands full, I know that you also have taken up photography as a hobby. How did that come about? 

I was just looking for something to do with any free time that I had so I borrowed a camera from a friend for a couple weeks, fell in love with it, and then bought my own. 

I’m more of a cityscape person, although I’ve tried portrait photography and a few others. I prefer the vibe that a city can provide. It’s usually pretty enjoyable to just go for walks and take photos when I see something that really captures my eye. (You can see some of Luis’ photos on his Instagram page). 

Now we enter the end of the interview where I’ll ask you a few “Quickfire Questions”.

What book is a ‘must read’ for you, and why?

That’s a hard question for me as there’s so many different ones to choose from. I really loved reading Dostoyevsky when I was younger. More recently, it’s more IT type books that I read. I would say the ‘The Pragmatic Programmer’ is a must read for any programmer.  

If you like longer ones and learning about the economy, I recommend Freakonomics. 

I’m not really one or the other, but I’ve had a Mac for the past 10 years now so I guess I’ll say Mac.

If you weren’t a Team Lead, what would you be?

An electronic engineer? Basketball player? Maybe Product Manager? Hard to say really, I’m down for anything.

I don’t really remember any really lasting advice that was given to me. Let’s just go with “don’t take everything too seriously and try to enjoy life”.

Luis Barragan has been a Team Lead at Veriff for a little over two years, seeing the company grow from 30 people to 300. We asked him all about his life before Estonia, his work before Veriff, and his new found love of photography.

An interview with Luis Barragan, one of Veriff's development Team Leads about his life before, and within, Veriff.

I was excited about what Veriff aimed to achieve and wanted to be part of that

Veriff’s team recently welcomed a new member, as Siret Paasmäe joined our ranks. The always cheerful and positive woman found her way to the Veriff team through the unique Educational Leaders’ Internship Program. For the second year running, school leaders are undertaking full-time internships in companies with well-established management cultures like Veriff. And no, the school will not lose its leadership as Siret has found an acting headteacher who will take over the position while she is interning at Veriff. 

Siret has been a school leader for 15 years at Tallinn Järveotsa Gymnasium, a school with more than 800 students and around 70 staff members. Education has always been her true calling and she wants to give back through her experience and knowledge. The internship program at Veriff provides an invaluable opportunity for this. 

Siret’s mentor at Veriff is Tiit Paananen, our VP of Engineering. Tiit has had his share of diverse experience of being a mentor before thanks to the awesome companies he's worked with in the past. 

We spoke to both Siret and Tiit about how things are going with the internship so far. You can watch this short video (in Estonian) to see Siret and Tiit talking about the internship, and read the English text of the full interview below.

Haridusjuhtide praktikaprogrammi intervjuu

Welcome to Veriff, Siret! How has the start of your internship been? 

The main keywords describing my experience so far are intensity, a steady flow of information, and leaping into the unknown — everything's new and exciting for me. 

I really enjoyed the 5-day onboarding program for new team members which I participated with 4 other people joining Veriff’s team that week. During the onboarding program each team introduced their role and explained what they're doing at Veriff. After all, I didn't know much about Veriff initially, I knew that the company existed but not much about its daily operations. 

I’ve already had a brief discussion and a kick-off meeting with my mentor Tiit and we've decided to set up weekly meetings. Currently we are working mostly remotely from our home offices and the majority of the meetings are virtual. My initial impressions are that Tiit is a really impactful and firm leader. 

I believe other people can answer that question better. But I'm glad to say that my colleagues see me as a supportive leader who they can always turn to. It's essential to be a good listener and this is what I have always strived towards. 

I guess you could also say that I've grown into the role of a leader. I started off as a teacher and by the end of my 20s, I became the headteacher and I've remained in this position ever since. I believe I've always had a little teacher in me because since I was a child, I've always known who I wanted to be. It's just been a natural process to grow and develop in this field since education has always been such an important topic for me.

#GoodbyeBadBag: A Summer Without Plastic Bags

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