Press release: India – 13 October 2020 – Mastercard today announced a partnership with Signzy, a leading RegTech startup based in India, to enable Signzy’s video-based KYC (Know Your Customer) solution for its banking customers. With this partnership, Mastercard customers will benefit from a completely paperless, remote, and secure onboarding solution for end-users.
Deployment of Video KYC will allow end-users to complete and submit their KYC application from the safety and security of their homes. This would be 99% faster than the traditional paper-based KYC process. Backed by artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technologies, Signzy’s Video KYC solution features security protocols to prevent unauthorized system intrusion or attempted fraud. Further, the solution offers industry-leading scalability to deal with high volumes of video KYC transactions.
In India, this launch will further Mastercard’s goal to drive inclusive growth via financial inclusion by enabling individuals and small businesses to go online. Earlier this year, the payments technology company partnered with various players and launched low-cost innovations that allow merchants to start accepting digital payments without incurring additional or high infrastructural costs. Video KYC will further the ease and speed of onboarding in minimal time.
Arpit Ratan, Co-founder of Signzy said, “Mastercard has strongly advocated digital transformation in the financial services space and has led by example. It is a matter of great pride to be chosen as their Video KYC partner. Our efforts are geared to offer our partners a mobile-first, customer-centric digital experience for their customers. Signzy’s AI-led, on-premise API framework allows easy integration across multiple platforms providing a quicker and completely remote and paperless customer-onboarding, taking care of all security protocols.”
Rajeev Kumar, Senior Vice President, Market Development, South Asia, Mastercard, said, “Mastercard’s partnership with Signzy will shorten the traditional clunky, time consuming and expensive KYC process for financial institutions. Signzy’s AI and ML have well-established links to many KYC databases in India which allows seamless support for e-KYC and Video-KYC. Therefore, the platform also solves the problem of many SME’s in India who may not have all the KYC documents. With V-KYC, SME’s can now complete their contactless KYC process remotely at their convenience from their homes and shops.”
Rajeev also added, “Mastercard and Signzy are assisting merchant acquiring banks to easily onboard SMEs in remote corners of the country for digital payments acceptance, open SME accounts and NBFCs to underwrite and disburse SME loans. During the nationwide lockdown, Signzy’s Video KYC comes as a big relief for financial institutions and SMEs.”
Signzy’s clientele has more than 90 Indian financial institutions, ranging from banks, NBFCs, insurance firms, Asset Management Companies, and so on. Some of the marquee names in this list include the State Bank of India (SBI) and ICICI Bank, Aditya Birla Sunlife AMC, and BoB Financial Ltd, etc. Moreover, Signzy’s offices in New York and Dubai and partnership with Mastercard equip the company to serve financial institutions across the globe. Mastercard has collaborated with Signzy to develop onboarding solutions for merchants and has a global partnership with them to scale up the solution across markets worldwide.
Recently, Mastercard also announced a commitment of Rs 250 crores (US$33 million) to help reboot Indian SMEs and enable business recovery amid the Covid-19 outbreak. As part of this commitment, Mastercard will roll out multiple initiatives to:
- bring small businesses into the digital economy by enabling them to go online
- provide them with catalytic inputs to operate growth-oriented businesses, including but not limited to access to credit, know-how, and value-added services while supporting them in meeting the new norms of safety and health protection
- empower women-owned enterprises to unlock their economic potential