An idea aimed at improving identity verification and fraud prevention in banking took Bernard Osei Karikari from the zonal stage to the finals of Zenith Bank Ghana’s Battle of the Minds 2013 competition.
Karikari was among 15 professionals selected to take part in the competition, where participants were invited to develop and present ideas addressing challenges facing the banking sector.
His proposal, known as VeriTrust, focused on how financial institutions could determine whether customers and the documents submitted in support of banking transactions could be reliably verified.
At the time, Karikari worked in the bank’s Electronic Banking Department. He presented VeriTrust as an Enterprise Identity Verification and Fraud Intelligence Platform, designed to support fraud prevention, customer due diligence and enterprise risk management.
His participation began at the Battle of the Minds 2013 Intrazonals on 15 June 2013. He subsequently progressed to the national finals, held on 30 November 2013.
The proposal centred on the risks associated with relying heavily on manual checks of identity documents and other supporting records, including employment information, bank statements, utility bills and tax documents.
Karikari proposed an electronic system that could authenticate documents, compare information across different records and flag discrepancies that could indicate potential fraud.
The proposed platform would also generate fraud-risk scores and audit reports, allowing banking officials to consider potential risks before making key decisions.
Another element of the proposal was the creation of an enterprise-wide system for applying standardised verification rules. It envisaged centralised audit trails, fraud-intelligence dashboards and risk scoring to give management a broader view of potential fraud patterns across different areas of a bank.
The proposal also sought to address wider banking requirements, including Know Your Customer (KYC), Anti-Money Laundering (AML), Counter-Terrorist Financing (CTF) and enterprise risk management.
VeriTrust was presented as a way of potentially reducing fraud-related losses while improving customer onboarding, staff efficiency and consistency in verification processes.
Karikari’s progression from the June intrazonal competition to the November finals marked the culmination of several months of participation in the innovation programme.
Beyond the competition itself, the project reflected an early interest in applying technology and data to identity verification and fraud prevention within the financial sector.