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"Perpetrators of synthetic identity fraud attempt to exploit of fraud, which continues to scale. Modern identity solu-
vulnerabilities in identity verification and will focus on tions, at minimum, must be agile, always on and always
optimizing the right mix of identity attributes to avoid connected, he noted, because legitimate players and
detection," she said. "Employing a layered approach that fraudsters are deploying the same technologies, such as
includes data, documents, biometrics, email and mobile ChatGPT and other new AI applications, with different
intelligence can offer a comprehensive synthetic identity endgames in mind.
fraud risk assessment."
He believes that in this level playing field, stopping
Affirming that risk scoring and machine learning are help- threats and staying ahead of well-matched adversaries
ing to reduce synthetic identity fraud, Luttrell proposed will require a new mind-set and new technologies. "Next-
that agile, real-time technologies calculate risk scores and gen authentication solutions must be on a different level
assess reputations faster than humans and deliver fast, ac- than today's solutions," he said. "This will help accomplish
curate decisions. In fact, she said, IDology is seeing more secure authentication that current solutions are unable to
data sources and risk signals deployed across identity ver- achieve."
ification and KYC processes.
Integrating speed, security, compliance
Forewarned, forearmed
Karimzadeh stated secure onboarding is critical for fight-
Luttrell further noted that numerous identity profession- ing fraud, because once a criminal gets through the front
als have themselves been victims of door, responses by adjacent fraud detection systems
identity theft or fraud and know firsthand how unpleas- wouldn't matter much. Slow speed is a common flaw of
ant and disruptive the experience can be. Putting forth the mainstream onboarding systems, he added, and some can
effort and determination to help eradicate fraud and see take up to 30 minutes to process a customer application or
positive results, she added, can be extremely rewarding request, which can cause friction.
and helps contribute to a healthy, growing economy.
Businesses, he said, may hesitate to deploy such a system
"Balancing security with a modern customer experience out of fear their customers might abandon their enroll-
is a key challenge today and outdated methods of identity ments or purchases, but fast onboarding systems can solve
verification that rely on credit files or introduce too much for this, while keeping customers engaged and helping
friction will put businesses at a disadvantage," she said. businesses onboard legitimate customers.
"Consumers expect fast, secure, and trustworthy interac-
tions and will walk away from anything less. Businesses Reflecting on how global enterprises can achieve KYC
must establish trust early in the customer life cycle, begin- compliance across fragmented regulatory jurisdictions,
ning with account opening and onboarding." Karimzadeh advised multinational companies to use a
common set of data across all of their regions. Once data
Reliable identity verification services help businesses is collected, he proposed, the KYC system can process
build trust with customers by prioritizing security and according to specific guidelines of each regulatory land-
identity verification, Luttrell stated, adding this approach scape.
can be a brand differentiator that helps attract and retain
customers who value privacy and data protection. Luttrell noted that integrating disparate data into work-
flows can be complex and challenging for organizations.
Weaponizing AI, digital tools "Identity verification solutions that ease this process

Mansour-Aaron Karimzadeh, co-founder, president and seamlessly in the background and provide a dynamic
COO at Vality Corp., pointed out that AI systems and new workflow, introducing additional checks only when nec-
digital technologies are giving hackers new ways to steal essary, keep it easy for companies requiring checks and
identities, which is a growing problem in payments and friction-free for customers," she said.
financial services.
Robinson stated about 49 percent of fraud occurs over the
"For the payments market, the estimate for unresolved counter, and banks need systems that perform transac-
fraud paid out by online retailers is around $8 billion a tion, image, Bank Secrecy Act and Anti-Money Launder-
year and growing," he said, maintaining that the largest ing analysis. To summarize, he named six assets that can
part of this fraud is related to ID theft. The high cost of help banks know their customers and fight fraud: identity
these crimes is due to actual fraud and the expense of authentication, fraud verification, compliance, data qual-
managing the fraud, he noted, estimating that for every ity, risk assessment and customer knowledge.
$1 of actual fraud, there is another $2.5 of costs to the re- Dale S. Laszig, senior staff writer at The Green Sheet and founder
tailer, which ratchets out-of-pocket costs up to around $28 and CEO at DSL Direct LLC, is a payments industry journalist and
billion. content strategist. Connect via email dale@dsldirectllc.com, LinkedIn
www.linkedin.com/in/dalelaszig/ and Twitter https://twitter.com/
While encouraged by security innovations, Karimza- DSLdirect.
deh warned strong authentication only stops a portion
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