Enhanced KYC via External Vendor Integration

Timeline

January - March 2025 (3 months)

My role

As the sole designer in the company, I collaborate closely with product managers, engineers, and key stakeholders—particularly the compliance team—on the eKYC integration initiative. I'm responsible for the end-to-end design process, including prototyping, user research, technical discussions with engineers, user testing with compliance, and UI design across both the investor-facing web and mobile platforms, as well as the internal system.

Opportunity & Context

As our investor platform expanded across Southeast Asia, enabling a fast and compliant onboarding process became a key priority. Currently, the KYC verification journey varies depending on how investors sign up.
For Singpass users, their details are submitted via Singpass, and the compliance team verifies their records through Artemis.
For non-Singpass users, the process involves manually submitting identity documents, completing a face-to-face verification before having the compliance team review their documents and cross-check their KYC records in Artemis.

Problem

As our user base expanded across Southeast Asia, we saw a clear opportunity to streamline the KYC verification process—especially for non-Singpass users, where much of the work remained manual. Tasks like reviewing documents, verifying identities over calls or email, and cross-checking records placed a growing operational load on both compliance and internal teams. Improving this flow would not only reduce manual effort but also create a smoother, more scalable onboarding experience for users.

To better understand the challenges, we spoke with the customer success and compliance teams and identified two key areas for improvement.

The Challenge

To automate the KYC process, we identified opportunities to reduce manual effort and improve the experience, especially for non-Singpass investors.

1. First, we needed to automatically read and verify documents, removing the need for time-consuming manual checks and face-to-face verifications.

2. Second, automating the Artemis verification process would allow us to instantly retrieve KYC results, streamlining the process for both users and internal teams.

For this phase, we focused on the first goal: verifying identity documents and investor faces instantly. It was also crucial that the new system integrated seamlessly into our existing onboarding flow, without adding complexity for users or the operations team.

Solution

We collaborated with the Compliance team to evaluate several vendors, aiming to find the best solution for verifying IDs and performing face recognition with instant results.

At last, we integrated Onfido to automate document and face verification across borders. As the product designer, I was responsible for the end-to-end integration, covering everything from UX to edge case handling, including:

• Onfido Verification Flow: Capture of ID + selfie, embedded into our onboarding

• Fallback Upload Module: When Onfido fails or isn't supported

• Verification Status Page: Keeps users informed with clear next steps

• Ops View Integration: Displays verification metadata and allows for exception handling

A new page was introduced in the KYC verification process, allowing users to submit their ID and undergo face recognition. If the verification is successful, their details are automatically prepopulated in the KYC form, eliminating the need for them to enter information or submit documents. Users can simply complete the remaining fields and submit the KYC.

On the internal platform, compliance can easily identify information sourced from Onfido through a clear Onfido tag. They can review key verification details—such as document type, selfie match results, and timestamps—directly within the interface. For audit and investigation purposes, the full data set retrieved from Onfido is also available at the bottom of the page, helping the team make faster, more informed decisions.

Impact

My takeaway

1. Automation significantly cuts down the time spent on both sides. While the KYC verification flow isn't fully automated yet, we're working towards enabling instant user verification, allowing users to start exploring the platform right away, while also removing the need for compliance to manually check Artemis results.

2. Designing with external SDKs still requires intentional product decisions—from understanding and setting up the workflow in Onfido, to determining what data to store in our database, and ensuring it aligns with compliance and user experience needs.

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Research

At the start when we worked to improve our own KYC process, we looked at how other leading platforms onboard users—particularly in fintech and digital identity. We focused on platforms like ECF, Wise, and Touch ‘n Go, which are known for seamless user experiences and regulatory compliance. The goal was to understand industry benchmarks for speed, automation, and effort required from both users and internal teams.

We observed that these platforms offer fully automated KYC flows—including real-time face recognition and instant verification—resulting in minimal friction for users and almost no manual work for operations or compliance.

User story

Before deciding on Onfido, the PM worked closely with the compliance team to explore various eKYC and Identity Verification (IDV) providers, evaluating which solution best met our regulatory and operational needs.

After selecting Onfido and researching other platforms, the PM and I collaborated to define user stories—ensuring we understood both user and compliance requirements for a smooth and effective integration.

Phrases breakdown

After discussing with the PM, we decided to split this initiative into two phases:

1. Aprime and Atlas (Internal Platform)

2. Mobile apps

Since Aprime and Atlas work together as a complete flow to support the KYC verification process, they need to be launched as a set. The mobile apps will follow in the second phase.

User flow & Design (on Aprime)

There are several key considerations I kept in mind while reviewing the user flow:

1. How to seamlessly integrate Onfido into our process without disrupting the overall experience

2. Where to place fallback options if users fail the verification

3. Whether the retrieved data should be stored and displayed if users leave the page halfway through

User flow & Design (on Atlas)

The key function of how this is used on Atlas is to help the Compliance team easily access investor information and identify its source—especially since we have multiple types of users.

 Some of the main concerns we considered during the design process were:

1. How did the user go through the onboarding process—was it manual, via Singpass, or through Onfido?

2. How can Compliance view the full set of information retrieved from both Singpass and Onfido?

These were critical to ensuring clarity and traceability within the internal platform.