Can we use identity verification to drive digital asset business growth and build a solid foundation for the metaverse? Dave McGibbon, CEO of Passbase, says yes.
For those who don’t know, what is Passbase?
Passbase creates trust between people online and helps businesses build on a foundation of protected identity. Our solution equips organizations with identity verification, monitoring, automation, and back-office tools to reduce fraud (and friction) while putting user data security first. Based in NYC and Berlin, we serve companies in crypto, fintech, gaming and more around the world.
What problems do you solve in the field of digital transactions and how?
At Passbase, we solve three main problems for our customers. First and foremost, we help increase trust and security by filtering for malicious actors, tightening security for high-risk activities, and protecting the data of their true customers. As fraud becomes more sophisticated in the world of Web3, this challenge is top of mind for our customers. Second, we help our customers reduce losses in the face of increasing fraudulent activity and ever-stricter Know-Your-Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) compliance fines by offering them a highly secure solution. Finally, we also help our clients navigate the complexity of the compliance landscape and help ease their operational burden by providing standard policy frameworks based on regulatory guidelines.
If we are to treat digital identity as an asset and not a transaction, how would you integrate this concept into the metaverse?
Today, online identity is fragmented, which means people have to re-verify each time they sign up for a new company’s service. If we think about turning digital identity into an asset, we will see a tremendous benefit in removing this fragmentation. The next wave of the internet will give people ownership of their data rather than the companies that use it. Therefore, this identity information – including KYC and AML checks – will be shared and transferrable across companies. This is particularly relevant given its decentralization in the metaverse. It is not just individuals and companies that do business, but individuals and other individuals. A verified digital identity is essential to create security and trust in this environment.
What types of impersonation do you see popping up in the Metaverse? How can we prevent them?
The types of scams in the Metaverse are not dissimilar to the types of scams we see elsewhere, particularly in online financial services. For example, we often help our Web3 clients combat money laundering, account takeovers, fraudulent IDs, deepfakes and more. The best way to prevent fraud is to implement a high-security identity verification solution like Passbase, which includes biometric identity verification and authentication, liveness detection, face matching, ongoing monitoring, and additional checks like those for AML watchlists.
In our conversation you mentioned digital spaces. How do you envisage these and what advantages do they bring to end users? How is identity embedded?
We already have a common digital space, the internet. The way we deal with it has changed over time and will continue to change in interesting and unexpected ways.
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Device: PC to mobile phone to ?? (AR, VR, Neuroimplant)
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Content: text to image to video to ?? (interactive digital rooms)
The digital spaces we’ve discussed, referred to as the Metaverse, usually take the form of AR/VR + Interactive Digital Space + High Trust / Commerce, although little in the way of detail. The main feature we help with is promoting trust and embedding trades. This is happening now, but going forward the goal is to enable a seamless cross-platform embedded commerce experience. KYC & AML are required for this and our role is to provide an infrastructure.
What’s next for Passbase?
We are excited to launch the next evolution of our product, Passbase Enterprise, which addresses our customers’ needs at the intersection of compliance and identity verification. With this new system, customers can customize multiple verification flows to align with their KYC and AML policies across industries, geographies and risk profiles. This turns the traditional workflow-based approach to KYC policy management on its head, replacing complex decision trees with the end goal they are designed to achieve: the policies themselves. Follow us on social to stay up to date stay!
About Dave McGibbon
Dave McGibbon is co-founder and CEO of Passbase, a leading provider of digital identity verification. Passbase provides an identity verification infrastructure that helps businesses meet KYC requirements in a compliant, privacy-focused, and user-centric way. By building a trusted infrastructure for the Internet, Passbase keeps businesses compliant and secure and end users safe.
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