Sergestur, a consulting firm specializing in management and repositioning of hospitality real estate assets, presents each year a list of the 40 most innovative Spanish technology companies in the hospitality sector in Spain. It is an independent, disruptive and differentiating publication in the hospitality sector. In this year’s edition, it includes Veridas as one of the benchmark companies.
Biometrics: a unique value proposition for the hospitality sector
Our identity platform for the physical and digital world allows us to offer a complete experience to the hospitality sector that includes:
- Digital check-in: thanks to our digital onboarding solution, guests can check-in online at any time and from anywhere. They simply scan an ID card with their cell phone and take a selfie. Our Artificial Intelligence engines analyze the evidence and determine that the document is valid and authentic, and that it corresponds to the person who has carried out the check-in process.
- Unassisted reception: Once guests arrive at the hotel, they can pick up their room key automatically and unattended from a biometric key dispenser. The system takes a photo of them and identifies if they are indeed hotel guests and have permission to collect the key. Thanks to this system, queues and waiting times at the front desk can be avoided, optimizing the time of both guests and employees.
- Biometric payment: Guests can also make use of biometrics to pay at hotel establishments, avoiding the circulation of cash and offering a much more convenient experience, especially in busy resorts.
An exhaustive analysis to choose the winners
The company selection process went through several phases. The analysis was consulted and agreed upon by different professionals in the sector, including journalists including journalists, accommodation and catering managers, travel agency and wholesalers travel agencies and wholesalers, professors and consultants from different geographical areas of Spain.
In addition, the Instituto Tecnológico Hotelero (ITH) has been instrumental in providing names of companies for nomination. The aim of these awards is to create a list of companies that are benchmarks in the technology and hospitality sector, for their innovation and contributions to the sector.
Veridas was more than present at Gartner’s Identity & Access Management Summit in London, an event where they discussed how digital transformation continues to accelerate the adoption of new identity and access management (IAM) approaches and technologies. Veridas was cited as a reference company in terms of biometrics solutions in one of the essential identity forums in the world.
BBVA, pioneers in digital transformation thanks to Veridas
Our CEO, Eduardo Azanza, and our Global Marketing Product Marketing Manager, Miguel Zarraluqui, accompanied BBVA’s Global Head of Digital Identity, Miguel Villaumbrales, who gave a presentation on “The experience of digital identity and security that drives the digital transformation of a bank”.
In it, Villaumbrales told about the bank’s digitalization trajectory and how Veridas has helped drive more than 30 use cases worldwide, in countries such as Spain, Mexico, Switzerland, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Italy, Uruguay or Turkey, among others. “Working as one team is the only way to improve and deploy use cases on a large scale,” said Miguel during his presentation.
Emphasizing the case of BBVA Mexico, where thanks to our voice biometrics solution we have improved the lives of thousands of Mexican pensioners, Villaumbrales pointed out that “the elderly accept biometrics when a problem is solved for them and we have achieved this thanks to Veridas technology”.
Thanks to Veridas’ Digital Onboarding solution, he also reviewed how BBVA became the first financial institution to allow remote account opening thanks to a simple selfie. BBVA has increased its customer acquisition through digital channels by 81% in the last year alone (1Q22 vs. 1Q21), going from a digital acquisition rate of 6% in 2017 to achieving 57% today.
Finally, BBVA’s Global Head of Digital Identity told what their dual security strategy is based on: device biometrics, according to FIDO (Fast Identity Online Alliance) standards, and Veridas biometrics. This allows them to adapt to the needs of each use case, country, and customer type, which means that digital sales account for 73% of all units sold by BBVA.
Veridas, recognized by Gartner as a global benchmark provider
The event featured many presentations by experts in which they reviewed issues related to digital identity and access management. One of the topics that stood out on the event’s agenda was the adoption of passwordless strategies as a fundamental piece in the acceleration and consolidation of digitalization.
One of the three presentations by Ant Allan, Vice President of Analysis at Gartner Research, dealt with the steps to achieving a passwordless strategy. Allan reviewed the importance of adopting solutions based on inherency elements concerning possession or knowledge elements, emphasizing that on-device biometrics cannot be considered exclusively as an inherency factor due to its direct dependence on the device.
In this regard, Ant Allan mentioned the vendors that he, as a recognized expert in authentication strategies, considers worldwide reference manufacturers, including Veridas in this exclusive list.
Global Finance magazine, which specializes in financial markets and investment banking, has recognized Veridas in its Innovators 2022 Awards for its innovative contribution to the financial sector.
Veridas has been awarded, on the one hand, in the category of outstanding innovations in fraud detection thanks to its voice biometrics tool to perform the proof of life of pensioners in Mexico for BBVA. On the other hand, it was named the most innovative technology company in the Latin American region.
Veridas’ project in Mexico has achieved a new, more secure and inclusive digital banking: more than 80,000 pensioners no longer need to travel twice a year to their bank branch because, thanks to Veridas and BBVA’s voice biometrics, they can now provide proof of life over the phone in just 3 seconds.
Regarding the recognition of Veridas as the most innovative technology company in Latin America, Mauricio Guijarro, Vice President of Sales for the Americas at Veridas, explains that “these awards from Global Finance come to recognize the intense work we have been doing for years in the region, where major banks already rely on our biometric technology”.
Miguel Zarraluqui, Global Product Marketing Manager of the company, affirms that “it is a commitment of all of us to close, with the best technology, the digital gap that our elderly people suffer so many times; changing the lives of thousands of Mexican pensioners with our voice biometrics fills us with pride and this recognition from Global Finance is a great satisfaction”.
Veridas works with more than 120 clients worldwide, where it has already performed more than 60 million identity validations. In addition, its commitment to quality, regulation, and compliance is paramount: it is recognized by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as one of the best face and voice biometric technologies in the world; it has recently obtained the ISO 30107-3 compliance report after passing the Presentation Attack Detection (PAD) level 2 test conducted by iBeta Quality Assurance, consolidating its leadership as a technology capable of fighting identity fraud and, among other milestones, hand in hand with BBVA, is one of the few technology companies that has managed to integrate its facial biometrics engine in the central Mexican public institution, the National Electoral Institute (INE), responsible for issuing the credentials used by Mexican citizens to prove their identity in electoral processes or when opening bank accounts.
Global Finance magazine has chosen the most outstanding innovations in finance in multiple categories as part of its annual innovation awards. This is the tenth edition of the awards that recognize banks, companies, and fintechs that identify new paths and design new tools in finance.
Veridas was proclaimed as one of Spain’s winners in the Tech Rocketship Awards. The Awards are sponsored by the UK Department for International Trade (DIT), specialising in helping overseas companies set up and invest in the UK and assisting UK companies to succeed in global trade.
Ignacio del Castillo, our partnerships Director, presented our solutions for digital verification of identity during his pitch that included live demos of our products. The jury was impressed by Veridas technology of facial and voice biometrics as well as identity cards verification, choosing us as one of Spain’s winners.
This marks another step forward in our global expansion and reassures the quality of our services!