Clients of Solaris can connect to the platform via API in order to use not only the Solaris products such as e-money, instant loans and digital banking but also services from third-party providers integrated on the platform. In this way, Solaris is creating a technologically advanced and regulatory sound banking ecosystem for both fintechs, established digital companies and also banks. The Berlin-based company was founded in 2016 and operates in several EU countries in addition to Germany.
Founded: 2016 | Customers: ~400.000 | With IDnow since: 2016
Identity Verification, Data Capture Automation, Document Verification
SOLARIS AT A GLANCE
~80%
Conversion
rate
for corporate clients using IDnow’s video identification and eSigning solutions
100%
Fully digitally onboarding
of companies
FINANCIAL SERVICES • EUROPE
Solaris integrated IDnow’s video identification and e-signing into its banking platform to support partners with a seamless, fully digital onboarding journey from anywhere. This supports paper-free instant credit and account opening flows inside partner apps and websites.
Starting point.
Solaris was founded in March 2016 as the first tech company with a full banking licence. Through banking as a platform, Solaris enables any business to offer financial services to its own end customers. Solaris provides “building blocks”, banking modules which partners can use to create new financial products. For instance, these building blocks include modules for bank
But Solaris doesn’t create all its modules from scratch. For some components there are successful, optimised solutions already on the market whose technological integration offers clear advantages in terms of time and resources, providing the perfect fit for
Solaris’s modular approach. Since many financial products developed in cooperation with Solaris require the end customer to be identified, the “Identification” block was also tested to see whether this component should be created in-house or brought in from another company. Video identification was chosen as the best way to ensure excellent user experience, good conversion rates and maximum speed and security throughout the process.
Challenges.
One crucial aspect to setting up Solaris’s financing and credit products was the ability to offer a 100% online application procedure from the very start.
As a pure B2B2X banking platform, Solaris has no branches or call centres of its own. It therefore looked for suppliers of digital onboarding services which could provide the best possible support for Solaris’s partners to win new clients. Equally important was a fast, reliable solution to enable the customers of Solaris’s clients to be identified securely via video, anytime and anywhere. Solaris also needed a suitable supplier of a legally compliant e-signing solution for the online completion of sensitive contracts, known as a Qualified Electronic Signature (QES). Ease of integration was an important requirement for both solutions, a high priority at Solaris per se.
Why IDnow.
After examining various suppliers in the market, IDnow was chosen for three main reasons:
IDnow offers both video identification and e-signing in one proces
Solaris and IDnow share the same approach to technology: simplicity whilst ensuring all security aspects are covered
The resulting technological flexibility of IDnow
The solution.
Since IDnow’s services are integrated directly into Solaris products, such as online instant credit, technology was of the utmost importance. By using identical interface standards, IDnow was able to connect to the Solaris platform very quickly and seamlessly and thereby link to various products and partners. Given Solaris’s B2B2X approach, IDnow’s technological flexibility is also a great advantage since it can meet the technological needs of a wide range of business partners. The integrated IDnow solution helps Solaris’s partners as they can make use of the “ID verification” module without the need to enter any additional contracts.
Because of IDnow’s and Solaris’s shared view of technological processes, IDnow was able to implement Solaris’s requirements extremely quickly and establish a continuous exchange to optimise several features of the service right from the start.
Customer experience.
With “IDnow eSign”, for example, solaris can offer its partner companies an integrated instant credit service that can be taken out completely online, paper-free and in just a few minutes. After entering the sum required and the duration of the loan, as well as digitally inputting any other relevant information, end customers can also be identified via video on the partner’s website or app. This ensures a continuous procedure without any media disruption. Applications can be completed, assessed and the loan paid out in a question of minutes.
Solaris’s partner companies also use “IDnow VideoIdent” to open bank accounts online. For example, customers of the freelancer banking app Kontist can open bank accounts remotely and within a few minutes at Solaris via the Kontist app. Providing the best possible support for such innovative banking solutions lies at the very heart of the Solaris banking platform.
Today’s customers expect financial services to use the same seamless procedures and processes they get from digital companies in any other industry.
Results.
Through Solaris’s B2B2X platform, many of its corporate clients use IDnow’s video ID verification and eSigning solutions, helping them to achieve a conversion rate of around 80%. In addition to individuals, Solaris can now also fully digitally onboard companies using IDnow’s solutions – a novelty in the market.
“Our banking platform offers corporate clients the tools for the banking of the future. Digital onboarding solutions can no longer be ignored. As both technical and legal aspects need to be coordinated, we’ve integrated IDnow’s solutions within our platform, making these available to all platform partners. Naturally the fundamental prerequisite for this has been that IDnow’s commitment to providing the greatest possible quality, ease and security coincides perfectly with our own.”
Marko Wenthin, Co-founder and CEO of Solaris
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