Thirdstream & Thales team to boost in-person identity verification in Canada

By Delisha Fernandes

Thirdstream, a Canada-based account onboarding FinTech company, has extended its collaboration with Thales, a global leader in advanced technologies in digital identity and security.

The partnership aims to reshape the landscape of identity verification solutions for financial institutions, introducing in-person document scanners and reader technology to support identity verification (IDV) solutions for bank branches.

Haider Iqbal, Director Product Marketing, IAM at Thales, stated, “Thales is looking forward to providing a seamless and secure in-branch ID proofing experience for both financial institutions and their customers in a time of increased risk from fraud and growing regulatory requirements.”

Focused on addressing in-person fraud attempts in financial services, Thales’ Intelligent document reader solutions authenticate or capture data from electronic travel and government-issued identity documents quickly and reliably.

Since 2020, Thirdstream has used the Thales’ IdCloud platform to offer remote know-your-customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) services for digital banking benefiting from mobile devices to capture images from government issued photo IDs and selfies. The document is checked for authenticity and the ID photo is matched against the selfie, with liveness detection to guarantee a live person is performing the request.

By leveraging Thales’ expertise in secure digital identity and Thirdstream’s continually deepening relationships with Canadian banks, credit unions, and trust companies, this collaboration will bring even more advanced identity verification options to the market.

This collaboration promises to set a new benchmark for secure, convenient, and efficient in-person identity verification solutions in the Canadian market. Further announcements are expected before the end of the year.

“The expansion of our partnership reflects on both companies’ commitment to remain at the forefront of innovation for the financial services industry,” added Keith Ginter, thirdstream’s CEO. “This advancement elevates the standards for identity verification in Canada. We are creating what some refer to as a ‘friction-right’ experience for consumers, which, research shows, is the single greatest contributor to defeating identity theft.”