“When identity matters Netverify^® enables businesses to deter fraud, optimize conversions and meet compliance mandates while also providing a seamless user experience”: Jumio Corp.

“Our solutions are used by leading companies in the financial services, sharing economy, bitcoin/blockchain, retail, travel, and online gaming sectors.”

Fraud is nothing new. From the moment people realized they could profit from cheating other people, fraud’s been something humans have had to worry about. While the concept itself is at least as old as human commerce, today’s fraudsters have developed sophisticated methods of account takeover and online fraud.

Thieves are developing new technological tricks to steal from the biggest online companies in the world every day. And every day those companies must try to stay one step ahead of the fraudsters while also trying to grow their own businesses. The problem is that most organizations have not kept up with modern security and identity proofing tactics to help thwart fraud.

If you’re using yesterday’s technology developed to address today’s threats, you’re woefully behind the curve. The bad guys keep getting better. Your business needs the latest fraud prevention techniques to have a chance at mitigating online risks while also giving your good customers a fast lane to get through the online experience without too many hurdles. And Jumio does this it best.

Jumio delivers the next-generation in digital identity verification, enabling businesses to reduce fraud and increase revenue while providing a simple and streamlined customer experience. Jumio uses computer vision technology, biometrics, machine learning, and human review to verify credentials issued by over 200 countries in real time via a smartphone or desktop computer. Jumio’s solutions are used by leading companies in the financial services, sharing economy, bitcoin/blockchain, retail, travel and online gaming sectors. Based in Palo Alto, California, and funded by Centana Growth Partners and Millennium Technology Value Partners, Jumio operates globally, with offices in the US, Europe, and Asia Pacific and has been the recipient of numerous awards for innovation including this year’s Frost & Sullivan’s North American Entrepreneurial Company of the Year for the Biometric Security Solutions Industry.

Accost the dignitary: Stephen Stuut - Chief Executive Officer

What is the chronicle behind Jumio’s commencement?

Thanks to data breaches, cybercriminals, and compliance mandates, it’s never been harder or more important to establish trust online. As traditional methods of verification, including simple passwords, knowledge-based authentication, and SMS passcodes have proven vulnerable, governments, regulators, and enterprises are being forced to find more robust, secure, and reliable verification methods to definitively establish identity.

Connecting a person’s online and real-world identities is the sweet spot of Jumio.

At Jumio, we want to reliably establish online trust in an ever-changing digital world through identity verification. Historically, we’ve been focused on the financial sector with an emphasis on payments where we’ve been the global gold standard. Today, we’re helping organization in a wide variety of industries establish trust, meet compliance mandates, and increase their revenues by ensuring their users are whom they say they are. The more the world becomes digital, the greater the need for ID, identity and document verification.

How did Jumio begin?

The core of our business is Netverify. Initially, we saw a need in bridging the gap between online and offline payments. Netverify turns a card-not-present transaction into a secure online transaction where no additional hardware is required by the merchant. From there, Jumio has expanded our solutions to include ID, Identity and Document Verification. At the same time, Jumio has invested in identity-proofing technologies and best practices including computer vision, biometrics and machine learning to improve the accuracy and speed of online identity verification. For a user trying to open a new bank account on their mobile device or sign up for Airbnb, for example, they will be prompted to take a photo of a valid government-issued ID, and then take a “selfie” to ensure that their ID photo matches the person in the selfie. Netverify also validates if the person is “alive” by detecting minute changes in facial expression, as many fraudsters try to use enlarged photos in an attempt to fool the system. Eyeball tracking was recently added which requires users to follow an icon in a random pattern across the phone’s screen. Jumio’s eyeball tracking makes it impossible to use a photo, instead of a selfie giving businesses and consumers a higher level of trust. After these checks are complete, a company can be confident that the user is who they say they are. For Jumio’s customers, Netverify is easily implemented and customizable to the organization’s specific needs for their desktop/web/mobile business processes, thus making identity verification a hassle-free process from end to end.

Early on Jumio saw the future of digital identity. As the threat landscape changed and smartphones became increasingly more sophisticated, Jumio expand its solutions beyond ID verification to include Identity Verification as a way to better validate a person’s legitimate digital identity.

How has Jumio Evolved over the Last Several Years?

Several things have changed since Jumio started, the security landscape has drawn even more public scrutiny because of increasing online fraud, account takeovers, identity theft and security breaches. According to Paysafe research, nearly 60 percent of Americans feel that becoming victims of fraud is inevitable when shopping online. Meanwhile, regulations have expanded, especially in Europe, with GDPR and PSD2 on the horizon. Consumers are becoming increasingly savvier about their identity information and expect more from the businesses they buy from to protect their information. As a result, Jumio has experienced greater demand over time, while also focusing on making the identity verification process more accurate, more streamlined, and more scalable. This led us to adding biometric facial recognition to our platform (announced last October) and the new features that will be announced in the near future.

Where do you see Jumio going in the coming years?

We are expanding into new industries, like bitcoin and blockchain, and exploring new ways to improve the speed, accuracy, and simplicity of our solutions to help our customers stay one step ahead of cybercriminals while also building a  foundation of trust with their users.

Meet the CEO

Stephen Stuut brings more than 25 years of experience fueling corporate growth in leading technology businesses. Prior to joining Jumio, Stuut served as CEO of TruePosition, a leader in location based services technology. Prior he was President and CEO of Broadband Innovations delivering digital interactivity services to cable TV providers. During his tenure, he rose over $30M in equity from venture capital firms and strategic investors and ultimately sold the company to Motorola in December 2005.

Formerly, Mr. Stuut managed the Telecommunications Practice at McKinsey & Company and did business strategy consulting for Booz-Allen & Hamilton in Germany and Braxton Associates (now Deloitte & Touche) in the United Kingdom.

Stuut holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, an MA from the School of Arts & Sciences of the University of Pennsylvania, a BS in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and an MS from the College of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona.