Address Verification: Everything You Should Know About
The rising number of fraudulent activities is causing massive losses across organizations. Therefore, organizations nowadays are adopting an employee address verification process. Address Verification is required to ensure that employees they are hiring are genuine and the address they have provided exists.
Without this identity check, criminals, as well as fraud, activities may increase. Furthermore, this process keeps the businesses safe from various deceitful activities and double-dealing. This article gives you thorough and accurate knowledge about address verification.
What is address verification?
Address verification refers to the verification of the address that the candidate shares with the company. In simple terms, address verification is for the authentication of a person that verifies the address they claim to live in is genuine or not.
Address verification is done for various purposes, such as employee hiring, granting scholarships to students, or onboarding customers for the bank. For example, employee address verification is a vital step at employee hiring. It is because an employee can access sensitive information about the company. Hence, an employee must be a trusted person.
Similarly, a bank needs genuine customers. It ensures this verifying address documents that include government ID proof of the person mentioning their name, address, and photograph. And these days, people prefer online address verification.
Need for address verification
Data plays a very crucial role in business initiatives and plans. A total of 97% of the company’s employees use this data for business opportunities, increasing the total revenue and serving their best to the customers. There will be fewer wasted outbound mails, reduced accurate marketing activity, and low costs with address verification.
As per a study by the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, there was a total of 43% of occupational frauds, of which 52% of companies performed address verification and background checks while 48% of companies did not follow the same. The companies who performed background checks found some fraud cases as well. And by taking immediate action, companies can prevent potential damage or loss.
Why is employee address verification necessary?
Employee address verification has become very important for the following reasons:
- Fraud prevention: Fraud prevention is the most compelling reason for addressing verification. A business must be confident about the employee they hire as employees can access internal and confidential information. The use of address verification services is of utmost importance to prevent identity fraud and manage reputational risk.
- Emergency situations: Emergencies can happen with anyone and anytime. Employee address verification will help employers reach out to the employee’s family address in case some mishappening occurs to the employee in the workplace.
- Share employee documentation: The verified employee address lets employers send any documents, rewards, or anything to the employer when required. Employee address verification, once done, can help employees in such situations, and they need not ask for the address again and again.
- Better compliance: As recommended by FATF, every business needs to perform an identity verification check to maintain the integrity of a company and ensure individual security. The address verification check can help online businesses to comply with the KYC regulations.
How is employee address verification done?
Employee central address validation can be done in two ways:
- Physical address verification: Physical address verification is done by a field officer, who verifies the employee details, such as their tenure of stay at the given address, respondent in address verification, and other members living with the employee. An employee can have a permanent or temporary address, of which the permanent address is considered more reliable.
- Online address verification: Online address verification is easier for both employees and employers. Here, the employee needs to upload the address verification documents online, and the verification is done digitally. The online platform verifies the existence of the location using the latitude and longitude values. Then it is followed by a physical inspection.
Valid Address Verification Documents
Below is the list of valid address verification documents for an individual:
- Government-issued ID
- Social security card
- Utility bill
- Insurance card
- Property tax receipt
- Lease agreement
- Driver’s license
- Posted mail with applicant’s name
- College enrollment papers
- Voter registration card
- Insurance policy or credit card statement
Organizations that require address verification
Every industry requires address verification to prevent fraud. However, it is most important in the financial and e-commerce sectors because:
- Financial sector: Financial institutions require address verification for employees and customers. It is also necessary for the organization to authenticate individuals to mitigate the risk of account takeover, money laundering, and terrorist financing.
- E-commerce sector: The e-commerce sector faces enormous losses every year because of the orders returned. Address verification service adds a layer of security to reduce fraudulent activities and prevent losses to the company.
Conclusion
This article explained all the details that you need to know about address verification. Address verification services let you perform the address verification accurately, whether international, online, or physical.
This article was originally published in SpringVerify Blog 2 months ago.
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