Financial services underwriting is often complex for customers and financial service companies. Fortunately, AI and automation make it easier to speed up this process. Understanding what tools are available and how they can help is essential. 

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Impact of AI on Underwriting

Underwriting involves many complex steps, from assessing a potential client's risk to verifying addresses and banking information. Understandably, this has historically been a considerable expense for underwriters in terms of time and money. AI manually provides underwriters a fantastic opportunity to dramatically speed up this process by automating many of these routine underwriting functions. 

Fraud is a massive challenge for underwriters. More than ever, companies must be proactive rather than reactive to fraud. Fortunately, AI allows you to create underwriting solutions that automatically flag suspicious transactions and implement extra security measures in real-time. AI-empowered underwriting can also create customizable pathways for higher-risk clients, allowing you to add additional security without forcing extra friction on low-risk clients. 

Underwriters leveraging AI also have an incredible opportunity to improve the onboarding experience for their clients. Automated tools allow you to better understand your clients and customize your solutions for them. This protects your business from fraud and provides them with a better service. Additionally, you can easily maintain compliance with your underwriting policies by having the system automatically verify compliance rather than having your staff comb through every detail of your policy. 

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Examples of AI in Financial Services Underwriting

Plaid

Plaid leverages AI to provide excellent KYC, an essential part of the underwriting process. You can authenticate identities worldwide, and it lets you work with a large customer base. Behavioral analytics checks for suspicious activity and flags potential fraudsters, helping you avoid costly data breaches and giving your customers peace of mind. 

You also can automatically check if the contact information provided by your prospective customer has been associated with any data breaches. Plaid can save your underwriters so much time and verify a customer's identity in seconds.  It is easy for your customers to input their information, and Plaid is designed to make the entire process as easy as possible. 

Middesk

With Middesk, you get an incredible automated KYB tool that allows you to verify businesses with certainty. Underwriters can easily verify information such as address, business name, and TIN. Additionally, you can confirm that the company in question is on any watchlists or associated with anyone on those watchlists.  

Middesk allows you to automatically check business registration and ensure that you only do business with legitimate companies. You also can get an overview of their online presence and see if they have anything online that can put your company at risk. Middesk automatically tracks any changes in business status and provides another layer of fraud protection. 

Ekata

Ekata is a fantastic tool that empowers you to provide a more customized underwriting experience. You can set unique verification pathways for customers based on whether they are high-risk or low-risk. Higher-risk clients can be highlighted early on in the process, and extra underwriting steps can be taken to ensure no fraudulent activity occurs. At the same time, low-risk clients can avoid these additional steps and have a more streamlined experience. 

These features dramatically improve customer verification rates and reduce the number of customers who drop their applications due to frustration with the onboarding process. Ekata allows you to quickly verify customer information such as addresses and email addresses and is incredibly effective for KYC. Ekata is designed to be adaptable and ensure that you remain KYC compliant. These are essential for financial service providers to stay ahead of fraudsters. 

Iovation

With Iovation, you can check a client's identity through various databases and government watchlists in real-time. You can apply and analyze dozens of data attributes to create a clear picture of your clients and the potential risks that come with them. Returning customers can easily be reverified even if their information has changed. 

Iovation allows you to dramatically reduce false positives and avoid additional customer friction. They also have a massive database that will enable you to verify whether the device a customer is using is associated with any suspicious activity. Like other tools, you can add extra underwriting and verification steps for high-risk clients. You also get access to a massive library of fraud reports, allowing your team to be more proactive regarding fraud. 6

IDology

IDology is centered around saving your team time and money rather than manually going through every KYC process step. By checking through various databases, IDology allows you to approve more customers quickly. You can put legitimate customers on a more streamlined path, enabling them to be onboarded faster. Risk-based approaches are easy to implement and allow for different verification pathways based on risk. 

Customization is central to IDology's system and allows for a smoother experience rather than one solution that does not work for many customers. The system is also easy to adjust and update, enabling you to adapt to any new compliance standards implemented by regulators. Adaptability also enables you to build a workflow that best suits your business and ensures you have the best-automated solutions. 

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AI with Under.io

Automation offers massive benefits to your business and allows you to change your underwriting system completely. This is where Under.io allows you to access all of the KYC and KYB tools discussed earlier. We accomplish this through our wide variety of partnerships that provide the best underwriting tools in one integrated system rather than subscribing to several providers. 

AI-empowered KYC and KYB are straightforward with Under, as you can choose the specific toolset that works best for your needs. We simplify the underwriting process so your team can focus on essential tasks rather than micromanaging every detail of the complex process of underwriting. This allows your business to maintain the highest level of security and compliance while saving time and money. 

Under.io is not just a KYC and KYB tool but is an end-to-end onboarding solution. You can find tools that work with Under from initial application to final approval. Online forms, PDF mapping, and electronic signatures are all at your fingertips with Under and many other incredible onboarding features. Click here to learn more about our plans and which one is the best fit to transform your customer onboarding process. 

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