We have a passionate and talented team here at 1account, and we’re looking forward to shaking things up for the better
KYC isn’t just a hoop that needs to be jumped through – it’s the inherent trust between a company and its customers. It’s trusting a customer to be relevant and appropriate to your business. It’s trusting a company to be a responsible retailer and to protect its customers. At 1account, trust is at the heart of everything we do. Our clients trust us and our technology to ensure we minimise risk to their business, helping them comply with industry regulations and increasing their business growth. On the flip-side, customers see 1account as a trustmark that the company they’re doing business with is an exemplar of best practice and security, giving them the peace of mind that they’re in safe hands.
How we got here
Founded in 2018, 1account is an award-winning software provider and digital ID company that works across gambling and other age-restricted product and service industries. Our aim is to provide best-in-class solutions for businesses’ ever-increasing KYC and AML requirements, helping them meet compliance and improve their customer journeys. Early in its inception, 1account quickly became the market leader in the vaping industry, helping vape retailers avoid the sanctions and reputational damage that are inherent with unlawful sales. From this foundation, 1account entered into other age-restricted verticals, including the gambling market in 2021 with an industry consultation: Benefits and use of digital ID in gambling. Subsequently, two new members were added to our advisory board: Simon Bazalgette, current EFL Director and former CEO of the Jockey club, and Ralph Topping, former CEO of William Hill for 14 years. Following on from this, we also picked up awards for best KYC provider of the year at the SBC Awards 2021 and the EGR B2B Awards 2022. From this launchpad, 2022 has continued to be a success as we’ve continued expanding our product portfolio to offer a range of solutions to help businesses accelerate sales and build trust with their consumer base. During the year we participated in the Home Office’s sandbox trials, testing how electronic identities could be used in a nightclub environment, through our digital ID mobile application. We’ve also been engaging with key operators in the gambling industry, conducting proof of concept work that has shown increased customer onboarding by 8–12%, compared to their incumbent providers.
Our core product suite
In 2020 our KYC product was launched into the vaping industry as a free model, enabling collaboration with industry leaders and regulators to build the best performing solution. Through these partnerships – and the additions to our advisory board – 1account was able to further enhance its KYC offering, adding more countries, data sources and functionality to meet the needs of the industries we work in. This included the addition of our eIDVT solution. If for any reason a user is unable to be verified against our data sources (e.g. due to a change of name/address/marital status/etc.) 1account’s state-of-the-art technology allows them to upload photo ID instead. This is checked in real time to make the process as swift and efficient as possible, and with minimal disruption to the customer journey. This aspect of our KYC solution effectively guarantees that every applicable person conducting business on your website has a way to get validated. For gambling, we needed to bring additional functionality for the stringent regulations in place for the industry. This included AML and affordability checks including global PEPs and sanctions screening. We also put together a dashboard so that clients can look at each transaction/sign-up at a granular level to provide actionable customer insights. Alongside our award-winning KYC platform, we also provide 1click sign-up, a simple yet powerful tool that allows customers to register their details online in seconds, removing the usual barriers associated with customer onboarding. And Digital ID is a mobile application that allows customers to prove their identity on their phone – either in-store or via selfservice purchase terminals – allowing staff more time to focus on business priorities, and increasing potential sales. This technology has also been embedded in the UK’s first vape vending machines, allowing customers to purchase age-restricted products safely using the Digital ID mobile app. During this time, we’ve also built many strong business partnerships, not just with clients but industry regulators, working groups and government departments as well. It’s these relationships that give us the knowledge and ability to provide solutions specifically tailored to the verticals we work in. We don’t just want to service these industries… we want to be part of their evolution.
What’s next?
Despite being a relative newcomer in a very competitive market dominated by established players, we’ve achieved tremendous cut-through in a short amount of time. I like to think we not only bring something fresh and innovative to the compliance and KYC market, we are also raising the bar and disrupting the industry, all of which has made people stop and take notice. In the past compliance seems like it was a bit of an afterthought, a tick box exercise that people did because they had to. We’ve turned that on its head and made it a virtue. Our commitment to supporting other businesses to succeed during exceptionally turbulent economic conditions is second to none. What we recognise is that a more compliant industry is a more sustainable – and by definition more profitable – industry. Our starting point for this is that achieving full compliance and KYC capabilities should be accessible to all operators. We can push the boundaries by offering our proven solutions to multiple age-restricted verticals, ensuring fast, effective and robust age and ID verification services across many industries, with learnings and best practices shared across sectors. We’re proud of everything we’ve achieved so far, but we need to constantly evolve to keep up with the changing face of all age-restricted markets. That means listening to our clients and partners, and working with them to ensure our product roadmap continually meets their business needs, and those of the industry as a whole. We’re already working on some exciting additions to our product suite – such as age estimation – to help operators onboard more customers and give more insights into how to improve their businesses. And of course, we’ll hopefully be winning more awards for our innovation further down the line. We have a passionate and talented team here at 1account, and we’re looking forward to shaking things up for the better.