Many organisations already have to check their customers' identities. But everything around the check can create a messy process: requesting evidence, guiding the customer, reviewing the result, and reconnecting it with the work that prompted it.
In this episode of Sense of Identity, Alan Clay, Director of Strategy, Customer Data Solutions at LexisNexis® Risk Solutions, joins us to look at how identity checks can fit the secure client communication firms and customers already use.
Watch the full episode above, or listen on Apple or Spotify podcasts.
The discussion covers the unnecessary work created by posted documents and separate identity systems, where checks can help beyond onboarding, and why the evidence requested should match the action a customer wants a firm to take.
Created from episode transcript
Where the Work Around an Identity Check Adds Up
Identity verification, know your customer (KYC), and anti-money laundering (AML) screening are established activities.
Firms already carry them out through manual processes, specialist platforms, and digital identity services. The challenge is to remove unnecessary work around this essential task.
Adam describes identity work being completed in separate pieces, with information and evidence moving between people and systems.
In a small advisory firm, that is felt as time spent chasing a client and waiting to progress a case.
For a pension provider working at volume, it becomes document handling, return postage, reconciliation, and service work.
Original documents make the burden particularly visible.
Staff receive them, decide whether they appear genuine, and arrange their return. Customers wait for important identification to come back, while both sides carry the risk and inconvenience of an item going missing.
Alan brings a related example from LexisNexis Risk Solutions' life and pensions work. Tracing a member to a current address can help a scheme reconnect with them, but sending a letter there does not show who opened it. Delivery and recipient identity remain separate questions.
Keep the Request, Check, and Results in One Journey
The forthcoming Mailock service connects these fragmented processes.
Mailock's role is to connect the communication around the check. A sender starts an identity request from Outlook or the Mailock web app. The customer receives it by secure email from a firm they recognise, completes the check on their phone without creating a Mailock account or installing an app, and the firm receives the results securely through Mailock.
The technology behind these checks remains specialist, provided by LexisNexis Risk Solutions: IDVerse supports document authentication, face matching, and liveness; IDU supplies identity-data verification and screening.
Mailock provides the secure email entry point, customer journey, and results delivery around these identity services.
Paul describes this as collapsing separate verification layers into one request. The practical benefit is fewer handoffs between communication and identity systems, while preserving the quality of the underlying checks.
Keep the quality of the identity check. Remove unnecessary friction around it.
The result is a secure, comprehensive results pack showing the outcome of each check and the available reasons or evidence behind anything flagged for review.
It gives the firm a record to consider, but the firm keeps responsibility for its decision, including any compliance, eligibility, authority, or transaction checks required.
The existing recipient authentication used by Mailock Secure Email remains available, but recipient authentication and identity verification serve different purposes.
An email, SMS, or question-and-answer challenge can show access to an inbox or mobile, or knowledge of an expected answer.
An identity check assesses evidence of who the person is. KYC adds identity-data corroboration, while AML adds politically exposed person and sanctions screening.
Identity Checks Have a Role Beyond Onboarding
Onboarding is an obvious use case of identity checks, but the need for identity evidence continues throughout a customer relationship.
Adam points to pension claims and other policy interactions where a provider needs to establish who is making an enquiry or asking it to release money.
A scheme may have held information about a member for years and still need current evidence about the person requesting payment.
The check has to fit the claim, give staff useful evidence, and avoid sending the customer through more disconnected steps than the decision requires.
Alan also describes the first contact after a bereavement. Checking the informant's identity when information is first captured can improve the quality of the record before it passes through related systems.
That check does not establish the informant's authority to act or their entitlement to money. It establishes who supplied the information, supporting the separate assessments that follow.
Want to Send Identity Checks by Secure Email?
Mailock's Identity, KYC, and AML checks are coming soon. Register your interest to hear when you can add them to the secure email workflow your team already uses.
Starting the request inside an existing client conversation can also make the action easier to recognise.
The customer can see who is asking, why the check is needed, and where to return for help if they cannot complete it.
Match the Evidence to the Action
Alan says the practical principle is that the level of checking should reflect what the organisation is being asked to do:
"You don't always need to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut."
Alan Clay, Director of Strategy, Customer Data Solutions, LexisNexis Risk Solutions
A routine service message may need no identity check. Access to sensitive content may need recipient authentication.
Changing bank details or transferring money from an investment or pension can justify formal document and biometric evidence. The consequence should determine the control.
Where documentary evidence is required, firms also need to consider what a member of staff can reasonably judge from a document sent to them. Adam explains the growing difficulty:
"Expecting an untrained administrator to identify a fake document that they receive is probably asking too much and a challenge."
Adam Byford, CCO, Beyond Encryption (Mailock)
Specialist document and biometric checks can add structured evidence to the firm's review.
A workable process must also provide a route for staff to examine anything flagged and help a legitimate customer whose check is incomplete. The results pack supports the firm's review by showing the outcome and available reasons or evidence behind anything flagged.
Match the Check to the Action
Define the action the customer is asking the firm to take.
Choose the access control or identity evidence needed for that action.
Decide who will review the result and handle anything flagged or incomplete.
For advisers already sending secure Mailock emails and already checking their customers' or clients' identities, the appeal is straightforward: bring identity checks into the secure communication platform they already use.
FAQs
How Does Identity Verification Differ From Recipient Authentication?
Recipient authentication controls access by testing access to an inbox or mobile, or knowledge of an expected answer. Identity verification assesses evidence of who the person is, such as a government identity document and a live selfie. Access alone does not establish identity.
Does Every Customer Interaction Need an Identity Check?
No. The appropriate control depends on the information involved and the action requested. A routine service message, access to sensitive content, and a request to transfer funds can each justify a different level of evidence.
Where Can Identity Checks Help Beyond Onboarding?
They can support claims, changes to financial details, and other interactions during an existing customer relationship. They can also help a firm establish who supplied information at first contact, while authority and entitlement remain separate decisions.
What Does the Firm Receive After a Mailock Identity Check?
The firm receives a secure, comprehensive results pack showing the outcome of each check and the available reasons or evidence behind anything flagged for review. The firm uses that evidence within its own decision-making and compliance processes.
Sam Kendall works on digital marketing for Mailock by Beyond Encryption, helping build B2B marketing activity around research, first principles, and sustainable growth. He writes about marketing effectiveness, positioning, customer communications, and digital culture, with longer-form work published at ATNL.net.
Sam Kendall
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