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Underwriting is an essential and unavoidable part of financial service company operations. Reporting and decisioning are critical for underwriters, and they must have the best solutions to confidently and efficiently approve customer applications.
Underwriting Reporting
The core of underwriting reporting in financial services is assessing risk. Companies need to ensure that applications they receive are legitimate and do not pose a significant risk of fraud or not compiling with regulations. This requires companies to collect various data ranging from tax ID numbers to addresses. Unfortunately, this data is often collected from multiple sources, such as municipal agencies or banks. Or, platforms like the ones we detail in this post. Under saw an opportunity to consolidate the way underwriters collect information and make decisions.
Unsurprisingly, many underwriters want to automate the reporting process as much as possible, which is often tricky. When automation does not work due to discrepancies or issues with data collection, the underwriter will have to step in and complete the process manually, significantly adding to the hassles and time of the overall process.
Reporting Tools
Various companies offer reporting solutions that smooth out the decision-making process for underwriters. Each of these companies offers their own unique advantages that underwriters can leverage.
Lexis Nexis
Data collection and analysis is the core of what Lexis Nexis does best. Their platform allows you to conduct thorough background checks of potential clients. Lexis Nexis collects data from publicly available records and databases. This data will enable companies to prevent giving out financial services to those who are ineligible and risky to onboard.
Lexis Nexis allows companies to review the bankruptcy history of customers to assess how much risk they bring as customers. Their reports also include other helpful information, such as real estate records and address history. These reports are geared towards ensuring regulation compliance and building trust by exceeding industry standards for reporting.
To begin collecting reports from Lexis Nexis, your underwriter must manually request to receive them. They will mail you instructions about how you can start accessing reports online. Additionally, underwriters also have the option to have reports mailed to them.
Ekata
Ekata is a fantastic tool for reporting and identity verification for various reasons. Being part of Mastercard enables Ekata to perform data analysis and reporting for companies globally. This also allows underwriters the ability to get reports from global databases and paint a more complete picture of potential customers.
Reporting with Ekata allows a company to analyze how customer information components are being used online. A name that has been associated with several precious fraudulent purchases or applications can be easily highlighted with Ekata. Additionally, it analyzes over a billion identities globally, enabling your business to vet almost any customer confidently.
Ekata is great for verifying the validity of information such as name, address, IP, email address, and phone number. Ekata can provide companies with adequate information to meet compliance requirements by analyzing how often these elements are used together.
All of this information is invaluable for companies seeking to mitigate fraud and smooth out their onboarding process. While Ekata provides great customer verification, their reports can need additional essential details, such as credit history or tax information, necessary to underwrite a business for financial services. This would need to be done manually by an underwriter.
IDology
IDology is an invaluable tool for underwriting reporting and data analysis. One colossal challenge and frustrating aspect of reporting is the high number of false positives. This adds costs and time to underwriters. IDology emphasizes false positive reductions for underwriters to focus on more critical tasks.
Like other reporting tools, IDology uses data such as biometrics and documents to verify customer identities and reduce friction in the onboarding process. Automation is another advantage of using IDology as it automates reporting, such as automatically filing suspicious activity reports.
IDology also makes KYB incredibly easy by providing a mountain of data to get an accurate picture of a business. These include reports about a business's reputation, bankruptcy filing history, politically exposed persons, and ultimate beneficial owner identification. All of these allow underwriters to make a much more informed decision that can dramatically reduce risk for financial service companies.
Plaid
Plaid also offers valuable reporting and decision-making services that underwriters can leverage. For credit underwriting, Plaid makes checking a customer's income easy by checking payroll and bank records quickly. Their system also provides a complete picture of the customer's identity. Plaid's network allows any company to verify the payroll of around 85% of the workforce in the US.
Additionally, Plaid allows underwriters to easily view customers' transaction history to see if this indicates a risky client. Underwriters can also view the loans that customers have that impact their suitability for credit. Plaid allows payment processors to conduct complete ACH risk assessments of businesses for payments. Underwriters also can automate much of the compliance process with Plaid. They will need to work with Plaid to create a specific solution that fits their company.
Plaid strives to provide underwriters with the ability to provide instant verification of legitimate customers. Underwriters may need to verify some accounts with unique circumstances manually. Still, Plaid does allow companies to speed up many aspects of their underwriting process dramatically.
Middesk
Middesk makes it much easier for underwriters to verify and onboard businesses. Middesk allows companies to set parameters to approve businesses that meet specific criteria, such as office addresses and watchlists. It also provides reports about a business's current registration information and ongoing litigations a company is facing. All of this is invaluable for understanding the risks with a specific company.
It is simple to see bankruptcy histories for companies as Middesk offers automatic data collection from Secretary of State offices all over the US. This allows underwriters to verify the legitimacy of a business quickly, and Middesk structures its reports so only the most essential information is shown to an underwriter. If the underwriter wants more information, they must go through it manually and check for that additional information.
Compliance first is Middesk's motto, and they work to ensure that underwriters and companies have confidence in the customers they are approving. Additionally, many API integrations are designed to allow a company to customize Middesk's solutions for their specific needs. Middesk also makes document collection easy for both underwriters and customers, dramatically improving the reporting and decision-making process.
Centralize Reporting with Under
These companies offer unique and helpful tools that make reporting and decision-making easier for underwriters. Some of them are a better fit for domestic customers, and others for international customers. Some include features such as credit reports and bankruptcy checks, and others do not.
With Under, you get access to all five of these companies and their features because they are integrated into our underwriting and onboarding system. This allows underwriters to use one login and one system to access all the reporting features mentioned above. There is no need to jump between multiple systems and accounts; there is just instant access to a whole toolkit of the best reporting solutions in the world.
From KYC and KYB, Under allows you to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to compliance. Additionally, we will enable you to check information such as credit history and bank verification quickly. Our system also makes decision recommendations to underwriters and flags applications that require more manual review.
This is what makes Under extraordinary: simplicity. Underwriting is complex and often frustrating, and our system is designed to take the stress out of the process for both underwriters and customers. We accomplish this by offering one seamless end-to-end system combining numerous features and integrations that complement each other and allow your company to change how you onboard customers completely.
