Stripe continues to expand beyond payments, launching a tool that help internet businesses securely verify the identities of their users from over 30 countries.
Stripe Identity is designed to help online firms comply with age requirements and KYC laws, as well as to reduce fraud and prevent account takeovers.
Built on the same infrastructure that powers Stripe’s own global onboarding compliance and risk management, the tool can be rolled out and ready for use within minutes, with no code required.
To prove their identity, users take a photo of their government ID and a live selfie, which Stripe’s machine learning then matches to the ID. Businesses can also request that users key in additional information.
The information collected is encrypted and sent directly to Stripe, so an individual business doesn’t have to worry about managing sensitive, personal information on its own servers.
Delia Pawelke, head, global risk strategy and onboarding policy, Stripe, says: “With Stripe Identity, we’re making our advanced compliance infrastructure available to all of our users. For an online business, verifying someone’s identity is now as easy as accepting a payment.”
Identity is just the latest move in Stripe’s diversification play. In the last few weeks alone it has rolled out a tax compliance tool, a fraud tool and made a new round of carbon removal purchases.
The direction appears to be going down well with investors who, according to The Wall Street Journal, recently jumped at the chance to buy stakes in the firm from existing shareholders.
Investors – including Sequoia, Shopify and Silver Lake – bid more than $4 billion for stakes, although only around $1 billion were filled, says the WSJ, suggesting shareholders believe the stock is set to keep rising.
Stripe, which raised $600 million at a $95 billion valuation in March, could pursue an IPO late this year or in early 2022.
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