Recognizing that the Philippines is the new growth center in the Southeast Asian region, AI (artificial intelligence) company HyperVerge sets up offices in the country.

HyperVerge offers identity verification and fraud detection platform with headquarters in Silicon Valley. It provides AI-powered solutions to banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI, non-banking financial company (NBFC), wallets, digital lenders, insurance service providers, and asset management companies (AMC).

“We see a huge opportunity to use our technology in a meaningful way, especially in supporting the government’s initiatives for financial inclusion,” said Kedar Kulkarni, CEO, HyperVerge.

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Quoting the latest “State of Finance App Marketing report of AppsFlyer,” HyperVerge said the overall demand for financial technology (fintech) apps in the Philippines soared by 68% in the past year, at the height of the pandemic and when organizations accelerated their digital transformation.

HyperVerge said over 70% of the country remains unbanked and more and more Filipinos rely on fintech services for their daily needs. With local lockdowns enforced and contactless transactions preferred, the smartphone has become the new essential to be able to live life in the “new normal.”

But the soaring usage of fintech apps in the country has also translated to rising cybercrime and fraud rates, making users more vulnerable in the much-mystified space of the internet.

AI

“We are best positioned to support various industries, especially the finance and telecom sectors, with our technology, which simplifies the complex structure of AI, and processes millions of images, videos, and documents, to verify and ensure legitimacy,” said Praveen Kumar, co-founder of HyperVerge.

HyperVerge enables financial institutions to reduce risks related to fraud and identity theft while maintaining the efficient processing of documents and services. So far, it has helped lenders in different territories in India, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, and the United States to save $50 million from fraud annually.

“We want to help Filipinos gain more access to financial services, and our technology creates an information ecosystem that makes it easier for lenders to verify the information and detect fraudsters from the get-go,” Kumar said.

State-of-the-art services

HyperVerge offers state-of-the-art services such as Facematch & Liveness, ID quality checks, and optical character recognition, Face-Based Deduplication to identify fraudsters, ID Forgery Checks, Video KYC, and checks against a decentralized nationwide database.

HyperVerge’s video KYC solution uses a smart scheduler that is optimized for high throughput, giving customers near-real-time services. The data is then processed immediately for liveness checks and face matches through AI. This cuts the process from 25 minutes to less than five minutes.

“We continue to build the necessary infrastructure to enable institutions to collaborate in stopping fraud and strengthening their processes. Currently, we are working with three large financial institutions in the Philippines and we are keen on expanding our footprint moving forward,” Kumar said.

“Ensuring customer protection and minimal risks translates to market stability,” Kulkarni said. “With fintech still at its infancy in the country, we want to provide a helping hand in ensuring that this sudden surge toward digital services continues to happen smoothly.”