Onfido Recieves £5 Million Grant to Develop Identity Tech for Small Businesses

Onfido has received a £5 million grant from the Board of Banking Competition Remedies Ltd (BCR). The funds come from the Capability and Innovation Fund Pool, which is set aside to promote the development of financial technologies that will benefit small and medium-sized organizations.

In that regard, BCR notes that many smaller organizations simply do not have the resources or the expertise needed to purchase, install, and manage complex financial and security software. However, those organizations still need to comply with strict Know Your Customer regulations and maintain the integrity of any financial interactions.

With that in mind, the Capability and Innovation Fund Pool seeks to make secure financial technology more readily accessible for those smaller operations. Onfido plans to use its £5 million share to improve its biometric and document fraud detection capabilities, and to develop better data anonymization and Portable Identity technology.

Onfido is one of six companies that received a Capability and Innovation Fund grant. Those companies split a total pool of £20 million after beating out more than 100 other applicants for the privilege.

“This Pool has attracted a large number of diverse and innovative organizations that are making strong progress in meeting the needs of UK SMEs,” said Capability and Innovation Fund Lead Director Aidene Walsh. “All successful applicants have demonstrated a clear vision for how they will deliver on their business proposition by December 2022 and provide agile and enduring products and services to the SME market.”

Onfido is best known for its selfie-based onboarding solution, which uses facial recognition to compare a selfie to the image on a government ID. The company recently secured $100 million in its latest round of funding, and has since indicated that sales for its remote identity technology have skyrocketed during the COVID-19 pandemic. The financial management specialists Curve and SwissBorg are some of Onfido’s newest clients.

(Originally posted on FindBiometrics)