Fintech startup, ThisIsMe, has been selected as one of three finalists in the Accenture Innovation Index Awards, for its Fast FICA concept.
The company also recently announced that it had been selected to participate in this year’s Gartner’s Innovation Programme.
The Accenture Innovation Index provides an in-depth analysis of the country’s current state of innovation and rewards forward-thinking businesses that are disrupting industries. Winners of the 2017 awards will be announced at the Accenture Innovation Conference. The event will see the world’s leading innovators, outliers and disruptors converge on 17 October 2017 in Johannesburg.
ThisIsMe, led by co-founders Juan Furmie and David Thomas, enables businesses to reduce fraud, automate FICA/KYC checks, improve onboarding and increase revenue while providing an on-demand, seamless customer experience. This fintech business can complete the FICA process in under three minutes — an African record.
It attracted $2,5-million in funding in 2016 and has processed more than one million verifications. It is expanding into African and international markets and counts Sanlam and Silica as customers. It was also ranked one of the best global regtech companies by the CB Insights team in 2017.
It’s not only financial institutions that require FICA systems. Businesses in property, retail, e-commerce, SMMEs, gambling and many other sectors require efficient FICA processes.
“Successful companies are finding ways to embed innovation — to allow ideas and the decision-making process to flow in a far better way,” noted Innovation Lead at Accenture Rory Moore, when speaking about the index and upcoming conference. “That state of innovation flow separates the leaders from the laggards.”
Says Thomas: “Until recently, the process to establish and verify the identities of clients has largely been paper based with clients having to arrive at a bank branch, for instance, for face-to-face identification. This tedious process of FICA onboarding has increased costs for institutions to between R300 and R1500 for each client.
“ThisIsMe’s digital platform makes it faster, cheaper and more accurate. The entire process is completed digitally, with machine learning technology ensuring that documents aren’t tampered with. With a client’s permission, we are able to verify that a client is indeed who they say they are.”
ThisIsMe is a gold member of AlphaCode, a club for fintech entrepreneurs and the fintech investment arm of Rand Merchant Investment Holdings.
