This initiative is creating a secure, interoperable digital identity ecosystem, setting the stage for trusted online interactions. The corporate verification landscape, in particular, is becoming highly digitised and operates on a 24/7 basis. Whether a company is looking to acquire new clients, fast-track onto a client’s vendor list, or guard against corporate identity fraud, it has never been more critical for businesses to secure and control their verified digital identity.  

This evolving landscape shows great promise but also faces a range of challenges. UK companies are grappling with verifying the legitimacy of businesses in a way that is both secure and user-friendly. Research from Chartis has found that banks spend more than $9.9 billion annually on performing customer due diligence (CDD) manually, with a further $2.8 billion dedicated to downstream investigations. Yet even those figures are dwarfed by the hidden downstream costs (managing investigations, audits, reporting, etc.), which stretch to well over $20 billion. In short, current processes are costly and inefficient. By contrast, robust Corporate Digital Identity systems offer significant business benefits: they ensure that only verified, authenticated entities can engage in transactions and thus significantly reduce the risk of identity theft, fraud, or unauthorised access. Businesses can quickly verify the identity of a company or individual, cutting down on manual processes and paperwork – delivering cost savings and building trust in the process. 

 Regulatory environment and efficiency 

 According to PwC’s latest CEO survey, nearly two-thirds (64%) of CEOs cite the regulatory environment as inhibiting their ability to reinvent their business model to at least a moderate extent. Compliance is often viewed as a significant barrier to entering or expanding in regulated markets. Nevertheless, with a Corporate Digital Identity system, companies can more easily evidence their legitimacy by consolidating all of their credentials in one place. This ranges from sustainability certifications to proof of business funding. Prospective clients or partners can be reassured of the authenticity of a company’s information, as these credentials are digitally verified by regulated entities (such as banks) in real time, smoothing the path for faster business onboarding despite a complex regulatory environment. 

 The validation of businesses is time-consuming and cumbersome 

Onboarding new suppliers or corporate clients is notoriously time-consuming, largely due to stringent due diligence checks and repetitive paperwork. In fact, research indicates it typically takes between 90 and 120 days to onboard a new corporate client, requiring about 51 hours of manual effort. Establishing a frictionless onboarding process is vital because cumbersome identity verification steps can push potential customers or partners away. The repetition of KYC (Know Your Customer) and due diligence processes can be significantly reduced if companies allow approved third parties (like new suppliers or partners) to access their verified digital identity profile, building an evidence and audit trail with every share. Furthermore, less-than-perfect onboarding processes often result in costly remediation efforts down the line. Streamlining these procedures isn’t just a nice-to-have – it’s essential to avoid a challenging and expensive cleanup later. 

Streamlined risk management 

Fraud continues to run rampant in the UK, underscoring the urgency for better corporate identity controls. Recent research from Visa reveals that more than two-fifths (41%) of UK small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have been victims of fraud in the past year, with the average loss per business around £3,800. Given that SMBs make up 99.9% of all UK businesses, this ongoing fraudulent activity is exacting a devastating financial and operational toll on companies and the broader economy. In light of this threat, it’s important to note that fraudsters are far less inclined to steal a company’s identity if it is registered and protected on a trusted due diligence platform. Companies with an established corporate identity platform can also better shield their sensitive data from exposure through common breach vectors (like email scams), thereby reducing the risk of successful fraud attempts. 

Businesses can take proactive steps by claiming their digital corporate identity through specialist due diligence platforms that simplify the compliance process. These platforms create a secure digital identity profile containing the company’s key due diligence credentials, which are then verified and validated by regulated entities and housed on a secure system. In doing so, a business not only protects itself against fraud, but also streamlines the sharing of its verified credentials with banks, law firms, and other partners when needed – building trust quickly and efficiently. 

A simpler identification system 

UK companies must now embrace Corporate Digital Identity systems as a cornerstone of a more efficient identification process. Financial institutions such as banks illustrate the benefits clearly: by leveraging Corporate Digital Identity automation, banks can save roughly one-third of the processing time spent on KYC onboarding (an average 32% reduction in end-to-end onboarding time). This improvement in efficiency directly boosts customer satisfaction and enables institutions to build and maintain more holistic client risk profiles, since verification steps are faster and more thorough. 

Traditional manual identification processes are rapidly being overtaken by technology. Corporate Digital Identity solutions combine real-time data from both public and private sources to provide comprehensive, accurate business profiles. By reducing human involvement in routine checks, these solutions minimize errors that cause delays or increase risk, and they free up human resources to focus on more important, higher-value aspects of the business. With Corporate Digital Identity, financial institutions and other stakeholders can validate and verify corporate identities at speed.  

The message is clear: a singular, unified corporate ID verification process must be introduced sooner rather than later to safeguard the integrity of UK businesses and to unlock the full potential of a truly digital economy. 

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