Shufti adds bank account verification to its identity platform

Shufti launched Bank Account Verification to help businesses confirm account ownership before payouts, withdrawals, refunds, direct debits, and beneficiary changes. The tool covers more than 70 countries and aims to reduce fraud, misdirected payments, and manual review work.

Why it matters: - Businesses often verify a customer’s identity without proving the customer controls the bank account that receives money. - Shufti’s new capability combines identity and account-ownership checks in one workflow, which can reduce fraud risk, payment errors, and manual reconciliation. - Regulators in major markets are pushing payee verification toward a required payment control. - A single evidence trail can make disputes easier to review after a payment is questioned.

What happened: - Shufti launched Bank Account Verification, a new capability that verifies whether a bank account exists, is active, and belongs to the person or business claiming it. - The product is available now in more than 70 countries across Europe, the US, APAC, LATAM, the Middle East, and Africa. - The system works through one server-to-server API and returns verification results in seconds. - The platform performs the account check without a bank login, redirect, or customer step. - The product is built to work at account linking, payout setup, and beneficiary changes.

The details: - Shufti matches the verified identity against the account holder name held by the bank through one verification decision. - Each check is stored with the identity result in the same case record. - The record shows which account was verified, which method was used, and when. - The API returns six response types: Full Name Return, Masked Name Return, Match Status, Account Existence Check, IBAN Validation, and IBAN Checksum Verification. - Full Name Return provides the account holder name held by the bank. - Masked Name Return provides a partially obscured name where full disclosure is restricted. - Match Status provides a pass or fail result without the account holder name leaving the bank. - Account Existence Check confirms an account is active and able to receive funds. - IBAN Validation checks country-specific IBAN structure. - IBAN Checksum Verification catches transcription errors through check-digit validation. - In Finland and Indonesia, the platform returns the full account holder name. - In Australia, the bank performs the comparison and returns only a match result. - In around 21 markets where live bank checks are unavailable, Shufti performs IBAN structure and checksum verification instead. - The capability also runs when a customer adds a bank account or changes one. - When a customer edits payout or withdrawal details, Shufti can require biometric re-authentication. - The biometric flow uses liveness testing conformance at iBeta Level 3 under ISO/IEC 30107-3.

Between the lines: - The launch reflects a shift from identity-only onboarding toward ongoing account-control checks at the point where payments are actually exposed to risk. - Shufti is positioning the product as a way to avoid stitching together separate vendors for identity and bank-account verification. - The regional differences in response types show how bank-data sharing rules still vary by market. - The company is also leaning on auditability as a selling point for disputes, compliance reviews, and payment investigations. - Raja Hassan, Shufti’s chief product officer, said the combined record is meant to avoid manual reconstruction when a payout is questioned.

What's next: - Shufti says businesses can check coverage and the applicable response type for required markets before rollout. - The company is directing users to its bank account verification guide and product page for more detail. - Broader adoption will likely depend on how quickly businesses replace manual checks and single-market workflows with automated verification.

The bottom line: - Shufti is trying to make bank-account ownership verification a standard part of payment setup, not a separate manual task after the fact. - More information is available in Shufti's bank account verification page