Translated by Authme
With just a smartphone, you can complete identity verification, and LINE Bank’s seamless user experience is powered by the technology from the startup Authme.
In June 2019, LINE Bank’s General Manager, Huang Yi-Meng, attended the AppWorks Demo Day with a mix of nervousness and anticipation. At that time, there was less than a month left before the Financial Supervisory Commission would announce the licenses for three pure online banks.
Huang Yi-Meng attended the event with the aim of pursuing new technology and innovative ideas and hoping to find potential partners. As the world was trending towards decentralized finance (DeFi), he didn’t want his bank to be left behind by the DeFi movement.
During the event, he came across the two-year-old startup, AuthMe. Founded by ethical hackers and focused on “effectively verifying customer identities,” AuthMe was showcasing its “eKYC digital identity verification solution.”
“It was exactly the capability we desperately needed,” thought Huang Yi-Meng.
In 2021, LINE Bank surged to become the number one digital account growth leader among pure online banks. Utilizing external teams to quickly launch high-quality mobile banking services played a pivotal role in this achievement.
【Brief Profile】LINE Bank
- Established/ 2020
- General Manager/ Huang Yi-Meng
- Primary Product/ Pure online banking services
- Achievement/ Ranked first in digital account growth in 2021
- Talent Acquisition Approach/ Maintaining a flat organizational structure, seeking external partners for developing new technologies.
The Struggle: Investing in Technology v.s. Focusing on the Core Business
At that time, Huang Yi-Meng was well aware that banks needed technology, but they also had their core systems to focus on, along with various other system requirements. The capacity of manpower and resources was insufficient to fully address all these needs. External partners were required to assist in achieving bank service upgrades and digital transformation.
Financial institutions had a significant need for identity verification, and eKYC was precisely what the bank required. Without hesitation, Huang Yi-Meng immediately scheduled a meeting with AuthMe, personally taking charge of it.
AuthMe’s founders and CEOs, Lee Ji-Guang and Hsu Nai-He, both had backgrounds as ethical hackers and had previously established cryptocurrency exchanges. They had encountered numerous hackers attempting to steal data or impersonate others to steal digital assets.
At that time, for cryptocurrency accounts, individuals had to take a photo with a set of passwords and a piece of paper and upload it for identification. If the identification failed, the entire process had to be restarted, often taking more than half an hour to complete.
“In the digital world, proving your identity can be more streamlined,” Lee Ji-Guang believed that data protection and digital identity verification presented a business opportunity.
【Brief Profile】AuthMe
- Established/ 2019
- CEO/ Andy Lee
- Primary Product/ Digital identity verification solutions
- Achievement/ Clients include Line Bank, Cathay Financial, and an estimated 7 to 8 financial clients in 2022
- Talent Acquisition Approach/ Emphasizing financial technology innovation, attracting talent interested in fintech.
AuthMe initially had just 25 employees when it received an invitation for collaboration from LINE Bank, which had recently obtained its online banking license. LINE Bank sought to improve the user experience for its online banking customers, making it crucial to streamline the process.
To achieve this, AuthMe used chip-based ID verification as its entry point, integrating its proprietary facial recognition and liveness detection technology into LINE Bank’s app or platform. This allowed users to quickly and conveniently apply for various services, with the entire authentication process taking just 3 minutes to complete their personal identity verification.
Over the course of a year-long collaboration, they developed a solution where users could verify their identity and open an account in just 1 minute using their mobile phones. Furthermore, account upgrades could be completed within 10 seconds via mobile phone, eliminating the need for computers and card readers.
As of now, LINE Bank is approaching a million account openings while maintaining a flat organizational structure with only 300 employees. Partnering with external teams has proven to expedite the development and launch of solutions.
A Top Team Trusted by the Financial Industry
Andy Lee acknowledges that AuthMe has a team of AI professionals who are dedicated to developing identity verification technology. These engineers must read top global journals, conduct internal research discussions, and have a deep understanding of areas such as mobile chips, communication, biometric recognition, and image fraud detection.
“Bringing together such top talent is a significant investment in terms of manpower and time for financial institutions. Doing it in-house may not always yield the same results,” says Andy.
Over the past year, AuthMe has been continuously seeking engineers to serve its financial industry clients, including LINE Bank. Some engineers who previously worked at companies like MediaTek and TSMC have even switched to AuthMe to join the innovative field of new financial technologies. The company plans to expand to 40 employees this year, and their current office on Fuxing North Road in Taipei, which can only accommodate 20 people, is already too small.
“Colleagues in Taichung and Kaohsiung work from home and come to the office only once a week, so there are no fixed seats,” Andy notes, hinting at an upcoming move to a new location near Taipei Main Station.
“We don’t see AuthMe as a vendor, but as part of our team, an extension of our capabilities that we lacked at the time,” Huang Yiming said at this year’s AppWorks Demo Day.
Looking back on the bold decision to collaborate with AuthMe in 2019, Huang Yiming’s team found AuthMe to be highly flexible in addressing the various challenges posed by LINE Bank.
“Everyone knows there are many financial regulations, and they keep changing. Their team persevered, and without their determination, we might not have reached this level today,” he admitted.
