Onfido is an identity verification company that helps businesses confirm their customers are who they claim to be. Banks, fintechs, crypto platforms and other regulated services use it to onboard customers remotely, meet KYC, AML and age verification rules, and stop identity fraud without slowing sign-up.
The problem is trust at a distance. When a customer never visits a branch, a business has to decide from a phone camera and a few data points whether to open an account, and fraudsters work hard to make that decision wrong.
At A Glance
| Vendor | Onfido (part of Entrust), London, United Kingdom |
|---|---|
| Category | Identity verification for customer onboarding, KYC, AML and fraud prevention |
| Identities covered | Human users (customers and applicants) verified through documents, biometrics and data sources |
| Deployment | SaaS API with regional hosting (EU, US, CA) and Smart Capture SDKs |
| Customers | Revolut, bunq, Grover, CoinDCX, PensionBee |
| Certifications | ISO 27001 (since 2017), SOC 2 Type II |
| Market classification | Identity Verification |
What Onfido Does
Remote onboarding has to answer two questions quickly: is this identity document genuine, and is the person presenting it the rightful owner? A third question follows: has this person, face or device been seen before in a fraud attempt?
Onfido’s approach is to answer all three automatically inside the customer’s own app and to let each business decide how much checking a given applicant needs. A low-risk sign-up can pass with minimal friction while a riskier one triggers further checks, so compliance and conversion are balanced per journey rather than with one fixed process.
Products
Real Identity Platform
The Real Identity Platform is the suite that holds every verification and signal Onfido offers, with Studio on top for orchestration. Its Verification Suite returns automated results, and businesses reach it through APIs and SDKs. The automated document and biometric decisions are made by Atlas, Onfido’s AI engine.
Onfido Studio
Onfido Studio is the orchestration layer. Compliance and product teams design verification journeys in a visual Workflow Builder, and each active workflow has an ID that the backend uses to start a workflow run. Webhooks can be attached to a specific workflow, so the customer’s systems hear about events such as workflow_run.completed.
Document And Biometric Verification
Document reports check an identity document and return a “clear” or “consider” result. Facial Similarity reports compare a selfie with the photo on the ID and come in Motion, Photo, Photo Fully Auto and Video variants, with liveness detection to stop spoofing attempts.
Fraud Detection Signals
Fraud teams get three signals. Repeat Attempts flags a previously seen identity document, even when it has been altered. Known Faces flags a face that has appeared before. Device Intelligence checks IP risk, bots, device integrity and geolocation.
Data And Watchlist Checks
Watchlist reports screen applicants against AML, PEP and sanctions lists, in AML, PEPs Only, Sanctions Only and Standard variants. Identity Enhanced, Proof of Address and Driver’s License Data Verification reports confirm details against trusted data sources.
How It Works
Onfido runs as a cloud API with capture SDKs on the client side. Data at rest stays in the region the customer chooses, set by the region-specific base URL, and there is no default region.
| Component | What it does |
|---|---|
| Regional API | Base URLs for the EU, US and CA regions, with checks created through the checks endpoint using region-specific API tokens. |
| Authentication | Sandbox and live API tokens, or OAuth client credentials with access tokens valid for 60 minutes. Tokens stay on the server and are never used in the frontend. |
| Smart Capture SDKs | Handle document and selfie capture inside the customer’s iOS, Android, Web, React Native or Flutter application. |
| Webhooks and CRM | Results reach the customer’s server as webhook POST requests as soon as an event occurs, and a Salesforce integration brings verification into CRM workflows. |
Identities And Systems Covered
| Human users | Customers and applicants, verified at onboarding and afterwards |
|---|---|
| Identity documents | Over 2,500 document types in 195 countries |
| Biometrics | Selfie, video and Motion facial similarity with liveness detection |
| Devices | IP risk, bots, device integrity and geolocation |
| Watchlists | AML, PEP and sanctions lists |
Company Background
| Founded | July 2012, by Husayn Kassai, Eamon Jubbawy and Ruhul Amin |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | London, United Kingdom |
| Ownership | Acquired by Entrust, with completion on 9 April 2024, when Onfido had more than 1,200 reported customers |
| Acquisitions | Airside, a user-controlled digital identity company from the travel industry, bought to enable “verify once, share anywhere” identity |
| Assurance | SOC 2 Type II report issued by BDO Limited |
Note: This overview is compiled from Onfido’s publicly available information as of 3 November 2026. It is provided for information only. NHI Mgmt Group does not endorse any vendor, and nothing on this page represents the opinions of NHI Mgmt Group.