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In our digital-first world, it’s all about improving customer approval rates for seamless onboarding, to ensure marketing dollars aren’t going to waste—and to fuel business growth. Socure’s industry-leading KYC/CIP solution achieves up to 98% frictionless auto-approvals for faster onboarding of consumers of all ages and demographics. At Socure, we strongly believe that the foundation of an effective KYC solution is built on accuracy and coverage, and we are constantly evaluating new data sources and building technology to provide unmatched coverage and data quality.

Today, we are very excited to announce that Socure is a provider of the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) Electronic Consent Based Social Security Number Verification (eCBSV) service, which verifies PII elements against the SSA’s government database of SSNs, names, and dates of birth. For Socure’s clients and partners tapping into the service as part of a broader identity solution, this means they will experience a boost in data coverage to improve KYC performance and help prevent synthetic identity fraud.

An additional signal in Socure’s integrated KYC solution, the eCBSV service helps to enable real-time comparison of prospective consumer data to the authoritative SSA database, validating Social Security number (SSN), name, and date of birth combinations as known matches or non-matches. According to Andrew Saul, Commissioner of the Social Security Administration, the goal of eCBSV at launch was to “[H]elp to reduce synthetic identity fraud by comparing data provided electronically by approved participants with the agency’s records. This will provide fast, secure, and more efficient SSN verifications for the financial services industry and customers using their services.1

A Great Signal, But Not A Complete Solution

A good CIP onboarding solution relies on data coverage to help identify the hard-to-identify populations such as younger demographics, thin-file or credit invisibles, and new-to-country entrants. The eCBSV service boosts both population and data coverage. However, eCBSV is not a ‘silver bullet.’ Socure utilizes additional signal with over 200 traditional and non-traditional data sources to deliver unparalleled coverage and a 360-degree view of customers.

It must be noted that as good as data sources and coverage are, they are insufficient on their own. Accuracy also must be taken into account in the form of advanced logic for query resolution. This logic is able to resolve instances when an inputted name doesn’t perfectly match a legal name within the SSA database (ex. “Edilberto vs. Eddie” or “Elizabeth vs. Beth”) and correct what likely would be a false negative determination. eCBSV also lacks address verification and other key data elements required for complete identity coverage and compliance with the USA Patriot Act.

The World’s First Fully Integrated eCBSV + KYC Solution

As the first multidimensional KYC solution to support the eCBSV service, Socure’s reinvented KYC has incorporated all the benefits of eCBSV, without any of the gaps. We’re raising the bar for blocking synthetic fraud while helping customers unlock younger market demographics through more accurate verification. Socure’s KYC solution can determine the optimal usage of the eCBSV services results for superior accuracy, coverage, insights, and cost savings—all with seamless scalability.

Socure’s reinvented KYC solution integrates a complete, holistic view of customers beyond just eCBSV. To produce the broadest population coverage we employ advanced logic for leading address normalization and matching, a patented system for continuously improving algorithms, and unmatched data coverage (including streaming data, credit bureau history, utility data, telco history, higher-education records, MLA, and 200+ other authoritative data sources). That means we’re matched by no one when it comes to onboarding Gen Z, millennial, credit invisible, thin-file, persons with name changes due to life events, new-to-country, and other hard-to-verify customers. By fully integrating eCBSV as an additional source, Socure’s decisioning is even more authoritative and accurate, so you can onboard more good customers, faster.

How to Optimize eCBSV with Socure

Socure makes it easy to access the SSA’s eCBSV service while gaining a multi-dimensional view of your prospects’ identities. Existing and new Socure KYC customers can take advantage of Socure’s eCBSV support, which is fully integrated into the company’s KYC solution. If you’re not already using the most trusted KYC solution to increase your customer approvals by 15-40%, with unmatched population coverage and data quality, contact us for a test drive!


1https://www.ssa.gov/news/press/releases/2019/?cmpid=Insightsblog-032421-benefits-of-ecbsv#9-2019-1

Aaron Lowe
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Aaron Lowe

Aaron Lowe

Aaron Lowe is a Senior Director of Product Marketing at Socure, a leading provider of machine learning and artificial intelligence technologies that provide digital identity trust at Day Zero and beyond. An industry expert, Lowe owns product marketing for Socure's market-leading compliance suite as well as its physical document verification solution, DocV. Prior to Socure, Aaron worked in advertising, marketing, and financial technology for companies including Oracle and Collibra.