Open banking pioneer Volt, a UK-based, leading fintech company powering the growth of real-time payments in the UK and Europe, is launching Verify, an ultrafast bank account authentication service for online merchants and businesses.

Volt is launching Verify simultaneously in the UK and five key European markets: Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria. The fintech powerhouse plans further rollout of the product across additional European markets before the end of the year. Volt has +95% coverage of consumer bank accounts in these countries.

The launch marks Volt’s expanded capability to cover AIS alongside PIS, which sees the payments gateway now covering the full spectrum of open banking services in Europe.

The newly launched product automates, strengthens and simplifies how businesses across markets and sectors verify customer bank account ownership. Merchants and businesses will be able to ensure a frictionless user experience at checkout for their customers while strengthening their fraud prevention and regulatory compliance defences.

Verify enables them to securely access customers’ bank accounts prior to payment initiation, to confirm users’ full name, bank account number and, where available, account balance.

Previous methods of account authentication relied heavily on manual processes, legacy credit bureaus and unstructured data, leading to time-consuming, resource-intensive and error-prone processes. “Verify’s ultrafast capability eliminates the complexity of the verification process and reduces additional steps. It is a great alternative to using microtransaction/penny transaction flows (where a user is required to send 1 penny transaction), which cause delays in the verification process and user drop-off at checkout, a major source of lost revenue for merchants and companies in the digital economy. Verify enables merchants to provide a superior user experience at checkout and is a highly effective solution for businesses that require quick confirmation of identity or account number authentication”, says Aleksandra Petera, Product Owner, Verify at Volt.

Ultrafast account ownership authentication in 4 easy steps:

●        The customer chooses Volt as the payment method at checkout and selects their bank

●        They give Volt permission to access their account data

●        They authorise access via their banking app or online banking

●        Businesses access this information via notification webhooks

Initially, Verify uses the single redirection authentication method, which makes the product immediately viable in Europe’s key markets. Future plans include supporting additional authorisation methods, which will provide a significant boost to bank coverage.

Key use cases for Verify include open-loop payments, direct debit mandates (where account authentication is critical to minimise failed payments) and user profiles (aggregated accounts information enables users to get faster payment or finance management processes).

Marcus Naserek, Co-founder and CEO of German-based company Sideos, one of the first to use Volt's Verify product, says: "Our mission at Sideos is to be the essential platform enabling enterprises to manage the digital identity of people and objects in the Web 3.0. Volt's account authentication product Verify provides a powerhouse solution that gives people a real-time shopping experience using their verified bank account in a very convenient way."

“With the launch of Verify, Volt now spans the entire spectrum of open banking capabilities, covering both AIS (Account Information Services) and PIS (Payment Initiation Services). Decreasing friction and preventing fraud are top of mind for companies operating in the digital economy, and Verify delivers the simplicity customers want, the security both them and merchants need, and the scale across key European markets as a blueprint for a future of real-time payments everywhere”, says Aleksandra Petera, Product Owner, Verify at Volt.