Over the past decade, the growth trajectory of digital business, especially for banks, financial services organizations, and digital marketplaces, has experienced a profound shift, with organizations increasingly prioritizing the efficient onboarding of businesses as customers. The challenge for these enterprises is that, while so much industry-wide effort has emphasized consumer onboarding, there has been very little focus on onboarding businesses. The process for B2B engagement is considered highly manual and time-consuming, but organizations know that the efficient onboarding of “good” businesses leads to higher revenue potential.

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As companies expand their services or seek new revenue channels, it’s logical to incorporate other businesses as parts of their customer ecosystem. Business customers typically deliver higher volume transactions, more loyalty, and repeat business, they often purchase value-added services and products, and they tend to foster longer-term relationships. 

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Because of this, innovative financial services companies are seeking ways to acquire more B2B customers with tools and processes that deliver a rapid, seamless, and trusted experience. They’re learning that digital identity verification for businesses is the most effective way of identifying “good” business customers, and when done right, can deliver those customers faster than any other system.

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The onboarding process is critical for this type of business growth, but there is a major distinction between onboarding individual consumers and onboarding businesses. For sure, identity is the critical element in determining the legitimacy of the customer entity for both types of users. However as onboarding of businesses is increasingly prioritized, customer experience teams can take advantage of best practices and business-specific tools to provide an effective path. Currently, most B2B onboarding experiences suffer from inefficiencies that include:

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• Long onboarding process: Manual errors both by the user and back office can delay the registration process and ultimately, time to revenue.
• Onboarding is not sequential: Typically, multiple people are required to review every time new information is available. Data requirements vary.
• Compliance concerns: This is especially a concern for banks when opening an account and KYB is required 
• Multiple providers share the ISV ecosystem: In many instances, when companies are onboarding an SMB for services, they are onboarding with multiple providers at the same time.

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Prove has been delivering the most accurate digital identity verification platform for consumer identities for years, and is now delivering that same level of onboarding enablement to businesses. Prove Pre-Fill^® for Business, powered by Prove Identity Network^®, Prove’s identity platform, is delivering a new dimension to the business onboarding and verification process, offering a seamless experience while reducing fraud rates.

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Prove Pre-Fill^® for Business is the B2B counterpart to the Prove Pre-Fill^® identity verification solution. It provides a comprehensive solution for organizations that want to onboard businesses by delivering faster onboarding, a decrease in abandonment, and a reduction in fraud (relative to attack rate). Business customers will get the same streamlined and frictionless onboarding experience, and organizations deploying Prove Pre-Fill^® for Business can operate with the confidence that their identity verification solution is accurately confirming that data entered by a consumer matches data from a trusted source.
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Businesses Are Seeking New Paths to Growth 

What’s especially interesting about Prove’s solution for business verification is that it delivers a radical shift from the methods that have been traditionally used to onboard enterprise customers. These methods were previously marked by a heavy reliance on back-and-forth checks, often requiring paperwork and documentation, and were lengthy and cumbersome. Each step in these legacy processes provided only incremental amounts of additional validation, and the length of time they required prevented the ability for both parties to transact. This resulted in frustration among businesses and caused many on the buy side to seek different vendors who could deliver goods and services with less operational friction.

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Current trends reflect a global movement toward digitization, much of it accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic which started in early 2020. This major global event prompted an urgent need for remote solutions, making digital onboarding a vital component of business continuity. Organizations realized that their ability to rapidly and seamlessly onboard new business customers directly correlated with their resilience and adaptability in the face of a very uncertain business future.

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Fortunately, the existing model for onboarding was well established through consumer digital identity verification. As consumer expectations for immediacy and efficiency permeate the business-to-business (B2B) realm, companies are compelled to provide a user-friendly, rapid onboarding experience for their business customers. Failure to meet these expectations not only hampers customer satisfaction but also risks losing valuable opportunities to competitors who can offer a more agile onboarding process.

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Business growth in this context hinges on the ability to capitalize on opportunities swiftly. In a highly competitive environment, where time-to-market is critical, companies that can digitally onboard new businesses faster gain a distinct advantage. The efficiency of onboarding directly influences the speed at which new customers can begin utilizing a company's products or services, translating into quicker revenue generation and a more rapid return on investment.
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How Prove Pre-Fill^® for Business Establishes B2B Trust

With this as background, the Prove team recognized the need for a solution that would enable B2B companies to achieve what their B2C counterparts have been doing successfully for years: combining speed with accuracy to ensure customer-provided information matches trusted data and do it in a rapid, frictionless way.

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First, we sought input and collaboration with Prove customers and prospects and with a wide variety of top-tier banks, lending companies, marketplaces, and others that are seeking ways to dramatically increase business through volume B2B transactions. These types of companies are also all in markets that are highly susceptible to fraud. Customer trust is a critical issue, yet establishing it must not create any obstacles in the onboarding process. 

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With the feedback we received, it was clear that we had to extend the same fast, easy, and secure verification experience of Prove Pre-Fill^® to business customers. Our solution is built to streamline the business onboarding and verification journey, providing a more seamless, efficient, and trustworthy experience. The aim is to enhance the overall integrity of the registration process for businesses.

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In our work with B2B customers, we have and will continue to seek important input and apply that back into the continuous development of a solution that will give users material advantages. Our work is built around continuous learning of a few critical elements of B2B best practices and learnings, including:

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• Industry Insights and Best Practices: Our goal was to gain valuable insights into industry-specific needs, challenges, and best practices. We had to understand how different sectors operate so we could incorporate relevant features and functionalities into Prove Pre-Fill^® for Business.
• Addressing Diverse Business Needs: Businesses vary significantly in their operations, requirements, and compliance standards. Input from our customers, prospects, and partners ensures that our B2B onboarding solution is flexible and adaptable to a wide range of industries and organizational structures.
• User Experience Optimization: Feedback from these B2B companies allowed us to consider and optimize the user experience. Understanding the pain points and preferences of end-users in various business settings ensures that we’re helping them deliver an onboarding process that is user-friendly, intuitive, and aligns with their business customer expectations.
• Compliance and Security Considerations: Different industries often have distinct regulatory and security requirements. Involving our customers allowed us to identify and address compliance considerations specific to financial services and other sectors. 
• Real-World Testing and Validation: Our customers are providing real-world testing environments for Prove Pre-Fill^® for Business. Their feedback and testing can reveal potential issues or areas for improvement that might not be apparent in a controlled development setting. This iterative process continuously adds new data points and enhances the Prove Pre-Fill’s reliability and effectiveness
• Customization and Scalability: Business input has been essential for ensuring that the onboarding solution is customizable to meet the unique needs of different enterprises. Additionally, scalability considerations are better addressed when insights from businesses of varying sizes and structures are taken into account.
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Addressing the Unique Needs of the B2B Customer

We prioritize a mobile-centric strategy, establishing a rigorous level of confidence by linking individual applicants to their respective business entities. This approach effectively safeguards against fraudulent attempts to impersonate legitimate businesses, and it works for organizations in any sector. The checks that Prove Pre-Fill^® for Business applies include:

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Dynamic Verification

Prove Pre-Fill^® for Business verifies matches information received to data from a trusted source by cross-referencing it with the associated phone number through real-time, passive checks, ensuring a connection between the individual applicant and a business entity.

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Real-time Authentication

Effortlessly confirm business entities, EIN/TIN, documents, and more in real-time, empowering well-informed decision-making.

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Every business possesses unique requirements for how they operate with customers, so Prove optimizes verification success rates by allowing users to adopt our suggested API configuration or customize it according to their specific business needs, considering both input and output requirements.

More companies are building customer trust with their customer growth efforts, and Prove Pre-Fill^® for Business is delivering the foundation for how they operate in today’s economy. If you’d like to learn more about how Prove can help you improve and increase your business customers, learn more at https://www.prove.com/solutions/pre-fill-for-business.