BioCatch Highlights Need for Better Account Opening Processes on Mobile Channels

BioCatch is once again calling attention to the challenges that financial institutions face during customer onboarding. The behavioral biometrics specialist noted that there is a growing demand for remote onboarding options, with more than half of millennials and 37 percent of all consumers now preferring to use an online channel to open a new account.

The problem, of course, is that most people still don’t want to sit through a lengthy onboarding process. BioCatch cites the latest Digital Banking Report when noting that nearly 20 percent of all online account openings get abandoned before completion, and that number skyrockets to an astonishing 92 percent when customers are going through the process on a mobile device.

The takeaway is that financial institutions need to offer a fast and convenient onboarding process without exposing themselves to higher rates of fraud. To do so, BioCatch encourages companies to focus on building trust rather than focusing exclusively on fraud prevention.

BioCatch ultimately highlights three key priorities for companies looking to improve their account opening procedures. More specifically, it argues that financial institutions need to mitigate fraud risk, eliminate friction, and improve retention rates on digital channels.

BioCatch goes on to pitch behavioral biometrics as a potential solution to all three problems, referencing specific use cases in which the company’s technology resulted in a better outcome for a financial institution. For example, behavioral biometrics helped a bank in Asia spot hundreds of fraudulent accounts, while another card issuer lowered abandonment rates and turned otherwise lost customers into an additional $1 million in revenue.

This is not the first time that BioCatch has emphasized the importance of the account opening process. The company has warned about the growing number of mule accounts during the COVID-19 pandemic, and recently detailed some of the leading predictors of new account fraud. Legitimate remote access activity has also gone up now that more people are working from their homes.

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September 16, 2020 – by Eric Weiss