Why KYC can now take under a minute (and still be compliant)

The old KYC problem

Identity verification used to be the bottleneck of fintech. Upload a passport, wait 2–5 business days, get an email asking for a utility bill, upload that, wait again. By the time you were approved, you'd often lost interest in the product entirely.

For businesses, the cost was even higher: manual review teams, document storage compliance, and a funnel where 40–60% of users dropped out before completing verification.

What changed

Three things made sub-minute KYC possible without sacrificing compliance:

1. Government ID OCR + barcode extraction — a photo of an ID is parsed in milliseconds, extracting name, date of birth, document number, and expiry without manual entry.
2. Liveness detection — a short selfie video confirms the person is real and matches the ID photo, using facial comparison AI that scores similarity against the ID portrait.
3. Real-time watchlist screening — sanctions lists (OFAC, EU, UN), PEP databases, and adverse-media checks run in parallel during the selfie step, so compliance review happens in the same second as identity confirmation.

How 1TCH does it

1TCH partners with Didit, a regulated identity verification provider, to run the entire flow in under 60 seconds for most users:

1. Upload ID — take a photo of your passport or national ID. OCR extracts the data instantly.
2. Liveness selfie — follow on-screen prompts (look left, blink, smile). The system confirms you're real and matches your face to the ID.
3. Screening — your name and date of birth are checked against global sanctions and PEP lists in real time.
4. Decision — most users get an instant approval. A small percentage are flagged for manual review (typically resolved within hours).

Is it still compliant?

Yes — faster doesn't mean less rigorous. The same checks that a human reviewer would perform (document authenticity, facial match, sanctions screening) are done by AI in seconds, with audit logs for every step. Regulators in the US (FinCEN), EU (AMLD), and UK (FCA) accept automated KYC as long as the provider is certified and the audit trail is complete.

Didit is certified to ISO 30107-3 (Presentation Attack Detection) and maintains full audit logs, so every verification is reproducible and defensible.

What this means for you

If you've ever abandoned a fintech signup because KYC took too long, 1TCH removes that friction. Most users verify in under a minute and can send their first payment the same day — without compromising on the compliance standards that protect your account.

Start your verification →