reduction in time to verify an end-user
of end-users verified first time
The challenge
Thirdfort are building the new standard in legal security – creating a seamless and secure property transaction process for both lawyers and buyers. They are redefining conveyancing with a frictionless, secure, and automated approach to compliance.
Under existing KYC and AML obligations, law firms must verify their clients’ identities during the property transaction. This would typically involve booking an in-person meeting with the customer, scanning their passport in the office, and storing this information in a backroom.
Relying on a manual approach to verifying customers causes problems with both fraud and UX. Lawyers are not typically experts in Document fraud. Even trained reviewers accept up to 50% of fraudulent IDs they review, which increases the risk of property hijacking or elaborate email misdirection scams. The average UK property scam costs victims in excess of £100,000, so getting identity verification right counts.
Equally, today’s customers are ditching 'face-to-face' interactions in favor of online experiences. Asking them to arrange visits in-person is a huge inconvenience.
Thirdfort’s aim is to move away from legacy approaches that drive away customers and invite fraud in favor of a smarter approach to verifying customer identities. With Onfido, they’re doing just that.
The solution
Thirdfort has been working with Onfido to help lawyers know their clients’ real identities. When a law firm needs to verify a client, they simply trigger a link which is then sent to the customer, who then uploads their ID and snaps a selfie through the Thirdfort mobile app.
Thirdfort wanted to be absolutely sure that they chose the right partner. This boiled down to three questions – can they accurately detect fraud, is their UX seamless, and are they easy to integrate with? Based on this criteria, Onfido was selected as the preferred partner.
Jack Bidgood, Co-founder and MD, Thirdfort
The results
Thirdfort’s primary aim is to redefine property law. They’ve started with a frictionless, secure, and automated approach to KYC and AML.
Onfido is helping Thirdfort automate legacy, manual processes that invite fraud. Thirdfort also blends signals from multiple providers, including Open Banking, to determine if a customer is legitimate. With Onfido’s AI-driven approach to fraud analysis, 80% of customers pass through verification with a 'clear' first time, so Thirdfort have fewer manual reviews, and clients get results faster. Even as UK property transactions rose during the COVID pandemic, Onfido maintained these standards at scale.
Overall, this automated approach reduces customer onboarding time on the Thirdfort platform by 60%, from 5+ days to around 2 days, without compromising on fraud prevention perspective. For the identity verification part of their journey, this takes under three minutes with Onfido, giving customers a seamless and secure experience.
From a technical perspective, the integration was a breeze. For Thirdfort, “Onfido is a developer’s dream - we built our initial architecture around Onfido’s technology.” In their early stages, Thirdfort were able to rapidly test and integrate Onfido’s Web and Mobile experience to get early feedback, getting them to market faster.
What next for Thirdfort? They’re continuing to add more signals to their AML and KYC platform in light of HM Land Registry’s recently introduced Digital ID Standard, which is expected to further drive the use of digital ID within conveyancing. Find out more at thirdfort.com.
About Thirdfort
Thirdfort is the new standard in legal security. They’re creating a secure, automated approach to verifying homeowners during property transactions. Thirdfort reduces the risks and costs of conveyancing, and gives customers a seamless and secure digital experience.
