Glossary Document Verification

Document Verification

Verify documents: This is what matters

Documents form the basis for many business decisions, such as opening a bank account, granting loans and processing contracts. However, the growing digitalisation of these processes is also creating new opportunities for fraudsters to circulate forged or manipulated documents. This poses a significant risk to companies. This can result in financial losses and regulatory consequences.
For example, there could be breaches of anti-money laundering (AML) regulations or Know Your Customer (KYC) guidelines.

Digital document verification is a key security measure. It prevents forged documents from being accepted in the first place. Therefore, it is an integral part of modern fraud prevention and makes a significant contribution to reliably fulfilling legal requirements. This includes the AML check as part of the Money Laundering Act, for example.

This article explains how document verification works in a digital environment, the technologies involved, and the advantages that companies can gain from automated solutions.

How does the verification of documents work?

Document verification follows a clearly structured process that includes technical and security-related checks. The aim is to confirm the document's authenticity and detect any tampering at an early stage, while ensuring that the customer journey is not interrupted or disrupted.

A multi-stage process has proven its worth here:

1. Capturing the document
   The first step is to capture the document digitally. Users can upload files directly, take a photo with their smartphone or a scanner. It is crucial that the document is reproduced completely and legibly.
   
   
2. Image optimisation and perspective correction
   The image is automatically optimised to create an optimal starting point for further checking. This includes cropping to the relevant document area, correcting distortions and adjusting brightness and contrast. This ensures easily recognisable results even under difficult conditions.
   
   
3. Text recognition using OCR
   OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology is used to extract relevant text from documents. Modern OCR systems use AI to accurately recognise difficult layouts, different fonts and multilingual content.
   
   
4. The extracted data is validated.
   This data is then compared with existing databases and checking algorithms. This enables formal errors, inconsistencies, and conspicuous deviations to be identified at an early stage.
   
   
5. Authenticity checks and security features are then identified.
   Finally, security features such as watermarks, holograms or machine-readable zones (MRZs) are analysed to confirm the document's authenticity. This phase can also recognise traces of manipulation, such as retouching or layout inconsistencies.
   
   

This automated process allows companies to verify documents in real time. Documents can be verified efficiently and scalably, without any media discontinuity. This is particularly important in the digital onboarding process, as it helps to prevent fraud and ensure compliance with regulatory requirements. If you need to verify a large number of documents, an automated technical solution is essential.

Advantages of automated document verification for companies

Automated document verification offers far more than just protection against counterfeiting. It plays a key role in streamlining business processes, ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements, and providing a seamless user experience.

Companies benefit from the following advantages:

• Strengthen fraud prevention: Manipulated or falsified documents are recognised at an early stage before financial losses or legal risks occur.
  
  
• Speed up processes: Automating document verification reduces manual checking efforts and enables real-time decisions.
  
  
• Minimise sources of error: Intelligent verification algorithms and AI-supported OCR technologies minimise human errors that often occur during manual input and checking.
  
  
• Ensure regulatory compliance: Legal requirements (e.g. in the context of KYC, AML or GDPR) are reliably met.
  
  
• Improve the customer experience: A fast verification process without media discontinuity ensures higher completion rates and a positive user experience.

Automated document verification gives companies a decisive competitive advantage, particularly in sectors with high security requirements, such as the financial industry or e-government.

Typical areas of application for document verification

There are many possible applications for digital document verification. Wherever reliability and regulatory security are required, automated verification helps to minimise risks and make work processes more efficient.

Efficient document verification with PXL Vision

PXL Vision enables companies to seamlessly integrate secure document checks into their existing digital processes for identity verification purposes. Our solutions combine state-of-the-art optical character recognition (OCR) technology, artificial intelligence (AI)-based plausibility checks and automated security checks to create a comprehensive verification process.

These modules can be flexibly adapted to industry-specific requirements, ensuring that companies retain full control over their workflows at all times. Applications range from quick age verification for online shops to comprehensive customer identification in the financial sector.