Being on the list of GITEX Global participants is a golden opportunity for us to hold a multitude of fruitful meetings with our customers and prospects. As a global developer of forensic devices and IDV solutions, Regula has many clients and partners in the Middle East and North Africa region, including UAE residents, like the Commercial Bank of Dubai, Emirates NBD, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, and Sharjah Islamic Bank. We also work closely with banks, financial institutions and government agencies in Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman.
It’s also essential to the company with 100% in-house R&D to stay a long-term member of the world’s tech community. Since GITEX Global always gathers together creative minds, leading experts, and more advanced IT technologies, Regula should be there!
The main application area of all Regula solutions is identity fraud prevention. They change along with the market demands, the latest tendencies, and challenges our customers should overcome.
Today we see a surge of foreign identity documents in online onboarding scenarios since more people venture to experience the digital nomad lifestyle. It’s a challenge for UAE businesses surveyed by Regula: 61% of these companies have to verify foreign documents manually, and 52% of respondents say they don’t have all the needed document templates at hand. Expanding our document template database, the largest in the world, to 13,000 items is an example of our response to this challenge.
The significant improvements under the hood of our solutions are also associated with fraud detection algorithms. As a reference, 49% of companies across the globe had to deal with fake or modified physical identity documents in 2022.
In reply, we enhanced our authenticity checks to identify fraudulent traces in printed photos and customer selfies. Regula Document Reader SDK automatically checks the presence (or absence) of all the portraits—primary, secondary, and “ghost”—located everywhere they should be in the document and conducts their cross-comparison.
Earlier this year, we also reinforced our facial recognition module—Regula Face SDK, by adding a new function called Face Image Quality Assessment. It enables you to validate a digital photo against predefined standards. These standards can be unique to a company to be consistent with its internal policies or compiled into the desired combination of over 45 parameters of the ICAO or the ISO/IEC 19794-5:2011 requirements.
Some of these capabilities our software and hardware have GITEX Global visitors will see at the Regula booth. Given the increased demand for innovation among local businesses, the tech show is always an excellent place to present the latest solutions. Regarding most of our customers in the region are from regulated industries, these new opportunities can be applicable for customer onboarding.
We attend dozens of local and international expos and conferences in our market niches every year. However, GITEX Global is always something special that we’d like to be a permanent part of for several reasons.
Primarily, it’s one of the world’s preeminent events for tech innovators and enthusiasts that attracts numerous A-list businesses. Holding it in Dubai, one of the central points of the MENA region, enables us as exhibitors to reach out to business representatives from countries of our interest in one place.
As a local central-stage event, GITEX Global also highlights the level of innovation and forward thinking there. You attract a thoughtful audience aware of the latest trends in identity fraud. For instance, according to Regula's global research involving C-level representatives from Banking and IT from UAE, 55% of local companies recognize synthetic identity fraud as a real threat to their business. This conviction also prompts them to take action since 96% of respondents from the region say they expect IDV spending to increase in the next 1-3 years.
Countries in the neighborhood are also gaining momentum in terms of the implementation of IDV novelties. For example, we provided a complete solution for remote document and biometric verification during visitor onboarding when a major sports event was held in Qatar last year.
Wrapping up, the MENA companies are ready to adopt innovations, including ones in verification identities we can provide them with. The majority of these businesses intend to attend GITEX Global. It’s a perfect match!
MENA is one of the top regions of interest for Regula. While the Middle East has been a financial center for the last decades, North Africa is where intensive business growth began relatively recently. As a reference, at Regula, we finished last year with a 70% sales increase comparing our business results in the region in 2021.
There are many initiatives we are already involved in. There are also more ambitious projects we would like to join there. A considerable part of our efforts is focused on the B2G sector. Local governmental institutions are willing to support IDV digitalization by adopting innovative approaches. The Regula hardware and software identity verification solutions are always here to assist.
GITEX Global is where we find some governmental clients. For instance, after the exhibition last year, we started an exciting project with the National Bureau of Statistics in UAE.
There is another big reason for us to stay active in the region. Domestic compliance policies oblige local companies from regulated industries like Banking to keep customers' data they operate inside the perimeter. That means these businesses have to choose on-premises identity verification solutions refusing SaaS. By the way, on-premises options are preferable for 52% of UAE participants in our global survey.
Here is where Regula's 100%-on-premises solutions come in handy again. For this reason, we continue to increase our partnership with local integrators.
Businesses worldwide are going digital. Various research sources, including our survey’s findings, confirm this. The MENA region is one of the forward ones in this pivot to remote access to different services across all platforms.
What’s more, organizations from local countries bring closer attention to customer satisfaction. For instance, 59% of UAE businesses consider improved customer experience through simplifying and speeding up the sign-up/sign-in process the crucial success determinant during IDV implementation.
However, there should be a reasonable balance between CX and safety. Since online identity verification scenarios are gaining momentum among more organizations in Banking, Aviation, and Government sectors, due diligence is crucial. As an IDV vendor, we are ready to offer border-level security software solutions that allow for conducting complete authenticity checks remotely without sacrificing customer satisfaction.
Importantly, the MENA companies are willing to adopt these new approaches and technologies, which proves the high percentage of use of biometrics in identity verification flows by UAE businesses: fingerprints (75%) and facial recognition (61%) in the first place.
With a high percentage of digitalization in different systems, the MENA countries, especially UAE, as a long-term GITEX Global venue, will stay at the center of this transformation.
Banking, Government, FinTech, and Aviation are the focus of Regula's attention now, and these industries will remain our focus in the coming years. Also, we have a plethora of successful projects and collaborations with local KYC and IDV providers.
Our solutions are a response to the requirements of these sectors. Moreover, many of the enhancements and new technologies we utilize in our products are inspired by customer requests.
With over 30 years of technical expertise, the company’s R&D continues experimenting to streamline the capabilities of our software and hardware solutions. Recently, we used our forensic examination devices to examine an Abu Dhabi hologram capturing the city’s sights designed by IQ Structures with AI technologies. As a result, a dual video spectral comparator, Regula 4308, and a trinocular stereo microscope, Regula 5003 let us see the hologram in great detail, including a nano text size of 36 microns!
Additionally, we see the emerging demand for identity verification solutions in North Africa. We believe this region has a high potential that will be revealed shortly.
AI and ML algorithms can significantly improve the identity verification process. That’s why Regula software includes such components as well.
For instance, artificial intelligence helps us provide our customers with automated document type detection, whether it’s a U.S. passport or an Ethiopian ID card.
The technology is also employed for fraud detection when it comes to the document’s validity and legitimacy checks.
Finally, AI helps us to carry out liveness tests to reveal fake or forged identities, passports, driver’s licenses, visas, and other identity documents.
Unfortunately, there is a downside to widespread digitization. Fraudsters adopt and adapt as well by coming up with more sophisticated tricks and advanced forgeries.
This is an emerging problem for finance-related industries, like banks and telecommunications, where voice fingerprints and customer selfie for user authentication is commonplace.
The fact is scammers have mastered the production of convincing deepfakes. Companies need to harness threat-appropriate solutions—with a complete set of authenticity checks, including liveness tests and examination of all security elements an identity document has.
Back to the growth of digital nomadism, some MENA countries are destinations for worker travelers, too. The region, especially UAE, is also involved in the global reorientation of financial flows amid geopolitical instability and economic turmoil.
For numerous local companies, it's going to be critical to conduct more comprehensive identity verification procedures for new customers seeking to open a local bank account, rent a vehicle, or purchase a SIM card. Furthermore, businesses must ensure that their foreign clients' income complies with all security regulations, including anti-money laundering (AML) policies.
The adoption of ESG strategies by tech companies has gained momentum, driven by stakeholder pressure, competitive advantage, risk mitigation, regulatory compliance, innovation, and a focus on long-term sustainability.
Tech companies often hold considerable influence over society and can impact people's lives through their products and services. Embracing ESG principles ensures that tech companies take into account the well-being of their employees, customers, and communities, while also addressing issues like data privacy, digital inclusion, and fair labor practices.
Other critical factors for ESG initiatives to lead to a more sustainable future for tech companies include responsible supply chain management, employee engagement; integration of ESG initiatives into the core business strategy; transparent and accurate reporting on their ESG performance; and finally—collaboration with governments, NGOs, and other businesses for collective efforts to address complex sustainability challenges.
As tech companies embrace ESG principles and prioritize environmental, social, and governance responsibilities, they have the potential to positively impact the world, addressing pressing challenges and setting the stage for a more sustainable and inclusive future.
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