As HR teams grapple to emerge at a new normal, verification and onboarding processes have been going through their own revolution. In a post-pandemic era, digital is the name of the game. Learn how our Digital Address Verification (DAV) solution – Footprints – is simplifying and streamlining the address verification process and consequently, candidate onboarding journeys.
BFSI
Top Five Technologies for Player Onboarding in Real Money Gaming
The recent growth in the real money gaming sector in India — 152 million users, and 21% more time spent— is supported by investment in digital infrastructure, smartphone penetration and changing patterns of consumption. But the regulation on these games in India is still iffy, to say the least. The leading real money gaming businesses are resorting to technology to walk tightly on the regulation rope and secure the first mover’s advantage in this industry that is evolving at a head-spinning pace.
We list five technologies that are going to make all the difference in creating engaging, compliant and fraud-free player onboarding journeys in the present and the future.
Biometric Identification
Player identification is not only a mandatory compliance requirement to avoid money laundering and underage playing, but also necessary to ensure that only a desirable pool of players (with spending capacity) is accessing real money gaming platforms. Biometric identification helps real money gaming businesses match a player to their documents through image-based face match. Being adopted by leading fantasy sports players, the technology helps in validating that a player accessing the platform is same one who registered in the first place.
Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
Games with stakes naturally attract fraudsters who are lured by the promise of drawing from a big pool of money for a small investment. With a prolific use of image editing software, the first entry point for them on the platform is by submitting fake documents that go unflagged. OCR technology catches document forgery and tampering easily, sieving fake applications from the real ones. OCR also enables scalability and ease of onboarding with automated data capturing and organisation. This translates into a great player onboarding experience and lower account abandonment rates.
Digital Address Verification
As Indian states legislate independently on games with stakes, there is a lot of confusion around different state regulations around real money gaming. While some states, like Meghalaya, Nagaland, and Sikkim welcome these games, others like Kerala, Tamil Nadu, and Andhra Pradesh have banned games with stakes, which means that gaming companies must discourage players in the latter states from accessing their platform. Digital Address Verification is emerging as a great tool to enable this. By capturing location of a user through geo-coordinates, the solution can prevent location spoofing.
Database-Driven Document Verification
Underage playing — below 18 years— for stakes is illegal in all states. Moreover, as we discussed earlier, allowing players from restricted states on to the platform can get a business on the wrong side of the law. This necessitates that a thorough document verification is conducted for all players. This process, if manually done, can take up to days, leading to a poor player onboarding experience. NID verification against PAN or Aadhaar databases allows for a quick verification of documents, establishing the identity of a player in real time.
Bank Account Verification with Penny Drop Method
Since real money gaming involves actual stakes, it is a ripe platform for money laundering and financial crimes. It is crucial that a user bank account is verified before making any financial transaction. API-based penny drop method is a great way of ensuring the authenticity of an account. This is done by depositing a small amount — usually INR 1 in the Indian context — which returns the validated bank details along with the beneficiary’s name.
AuthBridge is an industry-leader in building end-to-end player onboarding journeys. Our technology stack for real money gaming platforms covers all that is needed to succeed and make an impact in the context of evolving Indian regulation, digital transformation, and a memorable player onboarding experience.
To understand more about any of the above solutions or to get these for your business, you can contact our solutions expert at sales@authbridge.com.
Background Checks
Pre-employment Background Checks During COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to global unrest and affected thousands of lives around the world. And there is no denying that the business world has been the hardest hit due to the pandemic. Organizations are trying to adapt to the new normal as they plan their strategies to move ahead.
Additionally, recruiting qualified workers in important sectors like transport, retail, and healthcare, among others, has become more challenging than ever.
So, how are background verification companies faring under this situation? Are pre-employment background checks still going on as dedicatedly as ever? Let us delve deeper to find out.
The Major Benefits Associated With Pre-Employment Background Check
Before moving on to the challenges of pre-employment background screening during the pandemic, let’s see why it’s so important. One of the most significant advantages of pre-employment background screening is that it promotes quality hiring and eliminates the chances of negligence in the process. After all, companies are responsible for the output of their employees.
Thus, hiring anyone who is not at par with the level of work the company needs can damage its reputation. Background verification helps us know about a candidate’s previous employment history, accomplishment records, academic performance, and more. So, it offers detailed insights into the approach to work and their behaviour.
Common background checks include professional reference verification, address verification, employment verification, educational qualifications, and identity verification. Employee background verification services use the references given by the candidates to validate these details.
Background Screening during the COVID-19 : The Hurdles To Cross
As most organisations have resorted to remote working, the challenges to hiring have increased manifold. For instance, companies are unable to organise face-to-face interviews in the current scenario. The seasoned recruiters could gauge a lot from even the body language of the employees.
As a result, the employers are extra cautious and careful, and they’re focusing keenly on the applicants’ skills before hiring them. Background screening is one of the major challenges faced by organisations during this time. Limited resources and lockdowns are making it difficult for organisations to conduct background screening before hiring new employees.
The COVID-19 pandemic has also increased the competition between companies. Since most companies have gone online now and are jostling to get the attention of their targeted audience, there is no scope to be complacent. Companies need employees who believe in their goals and are willing to add to and improve the existing culture.
At the end of the day, an employee with a criminal record or any work-related misconduct is not good for the company’s values.
Major Challenges Faced By Most Employee Background Verification Services
The pandemic has proved to be a major hurdle for employee background verification companies. Even these companies have shifted to a work-from-home mode, and they aren’t able to carry out physical background screening and checks.
For instance, it helps to do a physical examination in case of address verification. However, they are still trying to keep up the level of accuracy and precision they could achieve during the pre-COVID-19 era.
Now, let’s take a look at the major challenges that employee background verification services are facing.
- Criminal and Civil Records
Public service organisations and other government departments are tied up with their COVID-19 duties. With these new responsibilities, it is pretty challenging to get timely and precise information about a probable candidate.
- Employment Verification
As the organisations switch to the remote working model, there are major delays in sourcing information related to previous employment. Also, getting details about their performance in the earlier roles, experience, and more from the previous employer is difficult.
- Education Verification
Most of the educational institutions are non-operational. So, getting access to these details is a little challenging. Employee background verification services nowadays use advanced technologies to ensure they can get a candidate’s academic details.
- Courthouse Closures
The COVID-19 restrictions made it hard to gain access to courthouse records and closures.
COVID-19 might have changed the scenario completely, but it has also increased the awareness about the significance of employee background verification. Also, it would be wrong to assume that employee background verification companies have stopped functioning because of the glitches mentioned above.
The top companies have increased their use of advanced technology and are still dedicated to running all the functions discussed above. After all, employee background verification is something that’s important for every organisation at all times, even during the current pandemic.
Wrapping up
The top background verification companies in the world are still holding their ground and offering quality services to the clients. And AuthBridge is the name of reckoning in that regard. We have served top names across industries before the pandemic, and we continue to do so even now. We are eager to add you to our client list, as well!
Background Checks
Employee Background Check vs Criminal Record Check: What’s the Difference?
Looking at any successful company will reveal how employees play a pivotal in a company’s success. Regardless of the business’s nature or scale, hiring competent personnel is critical. It can significantly boost your proceedings, resulting in an inevitable market surge.
Since the practice is crucial, companies need to be thorough with their approach. Hiring an incompetent employee can hurt your business, but undertaking criminal or shady personnel can incur even greater damage. That is why every business worth its salt invests ample time and resources in running a background check.
Background checks are a norm in the modern market, but their diverse use also leads to confusion. What is an employee background check, and how is it different from a criminal record check? Such questions are common for any business to ask.
While both terms are used interchangeably, their scope differs vastly. One is conducted to render general information regarding the employee, while the other generates specialised data based on criminal activities.
How are they different, and why should they be used? Let’s take a better look.
Why Run a Background Check?
Before understanding the difference between employee record checks and criminal history checks, you must wonder why they are important. Both background checks serve different purposes, but both of them offer perks like:
- Ensuring the safety of the workplace, clients, and co-workers.
- Maintaining consistency and quality throughout the personnel.
- Reduce the overall hiring costs in the long run.
- Minimising risks and long-term liabilities.
- Complying with laws and reducing fines and penalties.
Criminal Background Check vs Employee Background Check
In most cases, standard background checks include criminal activities-related information as well. However, criminal background checks offer specialised data solely surrounding the candidate’s criminal history.
What is an Employee Record Check?
Employers undertake pre-hiring record checks to gain critical insights regarding the aspirants. The information assures that the candidate showcases the skills highlighted in their resumes to prevent the chances of routine losses due to subpar performance.
Standard or employee record checks can vary based on the company’s requirements. It can be related to employment verification, driving history, social media screening, and even a criminal record check. So, it can be stated that criminal background checks are a part of employee background checks.
An employee record check can be defined as the summary of all the surface-level knowledge of the candidate’s history. It comprises different fields but only proposes basic data necessary for the job. However, that does not mean employers cannot expand their search in specific fields.
An appropriate example will be running an MVR check for a driving-based job profile since it digs out every piece of information regarding the applicant’s driving history and violations. Similarly, running a social media screening for jobs related to online interaction is profitable too.
However, employers need to be careful as investing additional efforts and resources in unrelated domains provides useless data. Since the process needs to be effective and in compliance with laws, employers can opt for organisations like ours to run an advanced background check.
