The challenge: strengthening scam protection
Ngāi Tahu Holdings Corporation identified three key areas for account verification enhancement:
- Supplier onboarding
- Purchasing team, setting up payees and making payments
- Charitable donations and grants
Existing verification challenges included:
- Requesting and waiting on bank statements for account verification
- Multiple phone calls between teams, suppliers and recipients
- Limited confidence in the authenticity of bank documents provided
- Friction in the payment and/or onboarding experience
We spoke to a Transaction Services team member at the Corporation who said they liked to keep a constant watch out for protections against fraud and scams as AI and other tools have helped scammers become more sophisticated.
"We saw account verification as a way to increase fraud controls and strengthen safeguards against scams."
The solution: real-time account verification at onboarding
The Corporation implemented the VerifyBiz solution, enabling the Transaction Services team to check if account details match bank records when onboarding, before payments are made.
“There used be a lot effort trying to get the right documents so we could check bank account details before payment. This put pressure on all the teams involved.”
The benefits: reduced time, reduced friction, increased protection
Once VerifyBiz was in place, the team realised some real benefits. Not only were there time savings in the account verification process, it also reduced the need for repeated phone calls.
- Time savings in account verification, and less phone calls required
- Better experience for the team, suppliers and iwi members
- Strengthened protection fraud and scams
“The team are obsessed with it now. It’s had huge time savings and reduced the need for phone calls looking for documentation.”
“We’re here to protect the iwi’s money. Getting this tool is a huge step forward in helping us achieve that. With the right tools in place, we minimise our risk and make sure our money is going to the right people."
Adoption: easy onboarding, intuitive tool
Onboarding was simple and it didn’t take long for the team to get comfortable using the service.
“What was really handy was having all the pre-drafted communications and the FAQ’s. We still had to put in place our own processes about what we needed to do after a Partial Match or No Match result, but everything else I could just copy and paste.”
“Onboarding was so easy. I put in place time for team training, but in the end, it wasn’t necessary. It’s a really straight forward tool.”
For Ngāi Tahu Holdings Corporation, strengthening payment verification is not just about efficiency. It’s about protecting the iwi’s resources today, and for generations to come.
