Smile Identity, trading as Smile ID, verifies that people are who they say they are, for banks, fintechs and other businesses serving customers across Africa. It checks new users at sign up, re-checks returning users at risky moments and screens identities for anti money laundering (AML) compliance, so firms can onboard customers quickly while keeping fraud out.
Everything is delivered through APIs and SDKs, combining biometrics, document checks, government database lookups, device intelligence and network intelligence.
At A Glance
| Vendor | Smile ID |
|---|---|
| Category | Identity verification, KYC and AML compliance |
| Identities covered | Human users: customers, account holders and returning users |
| Deployment | Cloud APIs and SDKs with asynchronous webhook results |
| Customers | Flutterwave |
| Certifications | ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II, ISO 30107-3:2023 Level 2 |
| Founded | 2017 |
| Market classification | Identity Verification |
What Smile ID Does
The mission is to make “sure where you are doesn’t determine what you can access.” In practice that means giving businesses a reliable way to trust a customer they have never met, in markets where documents and data sources vary widely from country to country. Checks can be combined to suit the risk of each step, from a light database lookup at sign up to a face match before a large transaction, and each check returns a risk based score. Models are trained in house on local documents and faces, and the network intelligence layer learns from new fraud patterns as they appear.
Products
Onboarding
Onboarding lets a business verify a new customer at sign up. With biometrics, it confirms both the identity and that the person is physically present; without biometrics, it verifies identity from personal details or an identifier alone. Under the hood it draws on government database checks, document checks paired with a selfie, or a custom combination. A Know Your Business (KYB) option applies the same verification to companies rather than individuals.
Authentication
Authentication protects accounts after sign up. A user’s face is enrolled once and then re-verified with SmartSelfie at login, on a new device, after a password change or before a transaction is approved, which stops account takeover without adding passwords or one-time codes.
AML Screening
AML Screening helps regulated firms meet their compliance duties by checking customers against more than 1,000 global and local sanctions lists, plus politically exposed person (PEP) and adverse media sources, with continuous monitoring after onboarding.
Fraud Checks
Fraud Checks catch people trying to open several accounts or use stolen identities, screening for fraud and duplicate identities with the help of device and network intelligence.
How It Works
Smile ID provides verification globally through a single set of APIs and SDKs. Client SDKs capture documents and selfies, and a customer portal is used to manage verification jobs.
| Component | What it does |
|---|---|
| Request | The customer sends the user’s details and a callback URL to a product endpoint. |
| Acknowledgement | Smile ID replies with 202 Accepted, plus a job ID and user ID for tracking. |
| Result | The final outcome arrives at the callback URL as a webhook, with a status, a human readable message and a machine readable reason. |
Identities And Systems Covered
| Human users | New customers at onboarding and returning users at authentication. |
|---|---|
| Identity documents | Government issued documents, with a published list of supported documents by country. |
| Biometrics | Face enrolment, selfie re-verification and presentation attack detection. |
| Government sources | Government identity databases. |
| Watchlists | Sanctions, PEP and adverse media lists. |
| Businesses | Company verification through KYB. |
Company Background
| Founded | 2017, by Mark Straub |
|---|---|
| Leadership | Mark Straub, CEO and co-founder; Genevieve Barrons, COO |
| Offices | London, United Kingdom and Cape Town, South Africa |
| Funding | A $20 million Series B in February 2023 led by Costanoa and Norrsken22, with Commerce Ventures, Courtside Ventures and 500 Fintech; earlier, a $7 million Series A in 2021 |
| Strategic investment | Mastercard widened its partnership with Smile ID and made a minority investment in October 2025 |
| Certifications and data protection | ISO 30107-1:2016 and ISO 30107-3:2023 Level 2 for presentation attack detection, ISO 27001 and SOC 2 Type II; compliance with GDPR, POPIA (South Africa), the Nigerian Data Protection Act 2023, the Kenya Data Protection Act 2019 and the Ghana Data Protection Act 2012 |
| Scale | More than 500 million reported identity checks; used by a reported 4 of the 5 largest Nigerian banks |
Note: This overview is compiled from Smile Identity’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.