IFAM Acceleration Industry Project: Introducing Digital Identity

In 2020, COVID brought several new challenges for Financial Advisories. With growing fears of infection rates and lockdowns, meeting customers face to face was no longer that simple. Namely, the biggest gaps were:

  • Verification of customer identity
  • Collection and veracity of Client acknowledgement

Pre-COVID, sales were conducted face to face allowed the adviser to personally verify the client, and together with a collection of a "verified true copy" of an Identity Card allowed a certain quality of identify verification. Customer acknowledgement was collected with physical client signatures.

To meet this gap, the IFAM digital platform needed to improve non-face-to-face sales advisory with the following goals:

  • Capturing and documenting accurate identification and acknowledgements of clients
  • Implementing the changes within existing workflows

Wen looked to Singapore's National Digital Identity initiative (NDI), as it provides a trusted methodology to allow business transactions to meet these needs. Together with several Financial Advisories in Singapore, Wen Consulting Pte Ltd ('Wen') led an Industry Pilot Project under the Digital Acceleration Grant1 by MAS, the "IFAM Acceleration Industry Project".

This was achieved by developing enhancements to the IFAM platform, namely:

  • Implementing MyInfo to collect government verified data into the sales advisory process
  • Where MyInfo is used, the customer's personal and corporate data is also verified2
  • Implementing "Sign with Singpass" to collect quality, verified customer acknowldgements for agreements
  • Developing Disign, a modular signature collection platform which works within the sales workflow to execute signature collection based upon business logic

With the IFAM Acceleration Industry Project, Financial Advisories on the IFAM platform are now digitally ready for non-face-to-face sales advisory. While the circumstances during COVID may have been unprecendented, it is heartening to know that the industry, with government digital initiatives and grants, is able to meet the growing challenges and be more resilient for the future.

The IFAM by Wen Consulting has assisted my firm to embark on the digitalization of our operational processes at a time when we needed it most, especially during the COVID-19 period where we could still onboard customers effectively and efficiently. Such tools are essential to future growth of the financial industry and IFAM being part of the Industry Pilot Project is an important start for us. Thanks Wen Consulting!

Philip Ong, Ray Alliance Financial Advisers

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  1. Monetary Authority of Singapore 2020 https://www.mas.gov.sg/development/fintech/digital-acceleration-grant
  2. Monetary Authority of Singapore 2020, https://www.mas.gov.sg/development/fintech/technologies---digital-id-and-e-kyc