What is Address Verification?
Verification of addresses refers to the process of identifying customers’ corporate and residential locations to ensure know your customer compliance.’
Businesses use online address verification services to make sure they are dealing with the legit customers. Retail and e-commerce can make use of this technology the most to validate addresses, as they face chargebacks, failed deliveries, extra shipping costs and loss of time due to typo-mistakes and incorrect addresses. To lessen the risk, it is important to verify addresses beforehand. To handle these, solutions like online address verification systems are gaining popularity. And to make these address verification process smooth, it is essential for every sector to know what is machine learning.
An average of 206,000 web attacks are faced by e-commerce channels likewise, monthly fraud attempts on mid and large retailers has increased from 43% to 48%, not sparing the smaller retailers too, getting exposed to successful 27% of attempts.
Industries In Need
Address verification solutions are everywhere because of the race between the fraudsters and preventers. With the rapid advancement in technology industries also are in need of digital and authentic systems which will assist them in identification of their customers by verifying addresses.
E-commerce Industry
Ballooning of the e-commerce industry can be easily seen and it’s not coming down. With the rise in global retail sales from 13% in 2019 to 18% in 2020, it is predicted that they will be nearly 22% by 2024. This is going to open new doors to progress due to the expansion of the market and growth of sales. Accuracy and authenticity will add in reducing failed deliveries, correction fees, and shipping costs, ensuring enhanced customer experience all the way.
Financial Sector
Customers prefer on-the-go instant access and work done with minimum effort. The use of internet and mobile banking is predicted to increase to 77.6% which is going to enable the customers to make instant credit card transactions. With all this advancement comes some risks, for instance scams, chargebacks, frauds, fake accounts and more. As per ACFE report, 36.6% frauds were witnessed in the financial sector of the U.S. with a loss of 200,000 USD. To prevent such troubles, address verification solutions should be incorporated which will identify the customers in real time along with their actual whereabouts.
Healthcare Centres
Systems of healthcare centres are filled with customer’s personal health information as well as their personal information which are of utmost security and demands privacy. If these somehow breached can cause unpredictable consequences to patients including their insurance and benefits snatching. In 2020, law enforcing authorities charged over 300 fraudsters for a loss of more than $6 billion. The risk of such fraudulent activities can be minimized by identifying patients by verifying addresses and to make sure that care is reaching the right person and not a ghost.
Real-estate Business
As per FBI’s internet crime report, there were 11,677 victims losing $221 million in 2019. The real-estate industry is the most exposed to address related frauds which arise due to faking documents. Real estate agencies and property merchants provide residence to the citizens which in turn are their customers and to comply with the regulatory terms and conditions, it is mandatory for the firms to verify the addresses of people from where they have come which will lead to their authentic identification. These firms provide residence to out of locality and out of city citizens who have come to stay for a shorter period.
Key Benefits of Address Verification Solutions
Cost Control
The extra costs that companies have to pay for shipments in case of wrong address seems to be minimal at first but results in costing large amounts of revenues later on. If the addresses are verified beforehand then the extra finances can be saved.
Improving Databases
Inputting addresses to verify and identify customers strengthens the databases and machine learning technologies because of the repeated matching that has been carried out.
Reduction in Failed Deliveries
If the addresses are accurate and authentic then the chances of wrong deliveries are less and the shipments reach the targeted customers on time which ultimately ensures customers satisfaction and builds trust in the respective company.
Real-time Correction
If the accurate address data is present in the database then the typo mistakes can be automatically corrected on the page while the customer is entering it in the fields.
To Wrap Things Up
Address verification services are the systems that prevent fraudulent and criminal activities. For execution documents are scanned or uploaded as a real time image which is matched with the information present in the databases. Online address verification has now become a necessity for every business due to their shift from physical to digital ways, whether it is the healthcare sector or financial institution, they all need to verify addresses to comply with the standards set by regulatory authorities. Validating addresses can ensure authentic service providing enhanced customer experience and secure onboarding.