Automating KYC Verification for a Fintech Company with AI, APIs and Make
Manual identity verification is one of the biggest bottlenecks in fintech. It's time-consuming, inconsistent, and slows down user onboarding — often resulting in churn and compliance risks.
Make.com Automation
Build and scale powerful automations fast. Scalevise designs reliable Make.com scenarios, handles complex logic and error handling, and keeps costs predictable as you grow.
- ✓ Expert scenario design & orchestration
- ✓ Robust error handling, retries & logging
- ✓ Clean handover with documentation & monitoring
In this case study, we show how we helped a fast-growing fintech automate its KYC (Know Your Customer) process using Make.com, OCR + AI tools, and multi-layered API validation, cutting manual review by 93% while improving accuracy and speed.
The Problem
The client — a B2C fintech startup offering digital wallets and payment cards — struggled with scaling their KYC process:
- Each user upload (passport, ID, selfie) was reviewed manually
- Compliance officers manually validated identity, address, and face match
- High turnaround time (up to 48 hours)
- Many users dropped out before verification completed
- Limited audit trail for compliance reviews
The Goals
- Cut verification time to under 5 minutes
- Automate 80–90% of all standard KYC cases
- Ensure GDPR compliance and full audit trail
- Improve conversion rates for new sign-ups
- Minimize internal workload without compromising quality
Our Automation Solution
We built a robust verification flow using:
- Make.com — for orchestration of logic and multi-step scenarios
- OCR & facial recognition APIs — to validate ID and match selfie
- Government-issued ID verification — via third-party KYC API
- Airtable — for tracking progress, statuses, and exceptions
- OpenAI — to auto-flag anomalies in metadata or formatting
- Slack — for alerts to compliance staff in edge cases
How It Works
1. Trigger: User Uploads Verification Docs
- Form or app submission sends a webhook to Make
- Uploaded images (ID + selfie) passed to OCR + facial match API
2. AI-Powered Identity Checks
- OCR parses ID data: name, DOB, country, doc number
- Face comparison API matches selfie vs ID photo
- Metadata (e.g. blur, glare, tampering) scored with AI rules
3. Backend Validation & Country Match
- Compare declared country vs document issuer
- Validate document ID against third-party database
- Geo-IP check of session for fraud flagging
4. Result Routing & Slack Escalation
- If clean: auto-approved, user notified, stored in Airtable
- If flagged: routed to Slack channel for manual review
- All actions logged in Airtable with timestamps
Results After Implementation
| Metric | Before Automation | After Automation |
|---|---|---|
| Avg. Verification Time | 36–48 hours | 3.8 minutes |
| Manual Review Rate | 100% | 7% |
| Approval Accuracy | 94.5% | 98.8% |
| Drop-Off Rate (during KYC) | 37% | 11% |
| Compliance Officer Workload | ~6 hours/day | < 1 hour/day |
Why It Worked
- Make.com allowed for flexible, multi-layered logic
- Third-party KYC APIs enabled real-time validation with minimal cost
- OpenAI’s metadata parsing flagged false positives without hardcoding rules
- Airtable provided full auditability for regulators
- Slack alerts kept the human-in-the-loop only where needed
Make.com Automation
Build and scale powerful automations fast. Scalevise designs reliable Make.com scenarios, handles complex logic and error handling, and keeps costs predictable as you grow.
- ✓ Expert scenario design & orchestration
- ✓ Robust error handling, retries & logging
- ✓ Clean handover with documentation & monitoring
Looking to Automate Your Compliance or Verification Workflow?
We help fast-growing companies build secure, scalable automations for identity checks, document validation, and regulatory compliance — using Make.com, AI, and your tech stack.