Stripe Unveils New Identity Verification Tool

The eCommerce payments company Stripe has announced the launch of Stripe Identity, a tool that lets online businesses securely verify user identities.

“As more economic activity happens online, the need for internet businesses to establish and maintain high levels of trust increases commensurately,” the company said in its announcement. “Online businesses frequently need to verify the identities of their users to comply with age requirements or ‘Know Your Customer’ (KYC) laws — and to increase trust and safety by reducing fraud, preventing account takeovers and stopping bad actors.”

Stripe Identity, which verifies the identity of users in more than 30 countries, is built using the same infrastructure as the company’s own onboarding compliance and risk management system. Stripe said it is “the first self-serve tool of its kind, allowing any online business to begin verifying the identities of their users in just a few minutes, with no code required.” Early Stripe Identity users include Discord, Peerspace and Shippo.

The tool’s low-code integration option lets businesses begin verifying identities in minutes, with a verification flow hosted by Stripe. Fraud and risk teams can generate verification links to look further at suspicious transactions or high-risk users, with no code necessary.

Stripe says the information collected is encrypted and sent straight to Stripe, so its customers don’t need to worry about managing sensitive or personal info on their own servers, letting businesses verify identities faster and more securely, with less risk and effort.

In order to prove their identities, users must submit a photo of their government-issued ID and a live selfie. Stripe’s machine learning then matches it to the ID, a process that can be completed as quickly as 15 seconds.

For more on the growing importance of “identity literacy,” read PYMNTS’ March interview with Carey O’Connor Kolaja, CEO of the global identity verification firm AU10TIX.