For Nect, this successful deal represents not only the next step in its expansion but also its entry into a new industry. With Kanga Exchange, the first company from the booming crypto trading sector joins the growing list of customers. Previously, Nect’s customer base in Germany included companies such as insurance providers, health insurance funds, telecommunications companies, as well as authorities and state lotteries. Here, Nect is known for its particularly user-friendly identification process using video recordings of an ID document and subsequently the face. Users can identify themselves via the app in just two to three minutes.
With Nect, Kanga Exchange is relying on the Hamburg-based startup to detect fraud attempts at an early stage and to make the deposit and withdrawal process even easier and faster for customers. For both, prior legitimation of the customer is required in accordance with the Money Laundering Act in Poland. With Nect’s Selfie-Ident, users can identify themselves fully automatically within a few minutes in order to deposit amounts into their virtual crypto account or have a sum paid
out.
“To comply with the Polish Money Laundering Act, we must integrate a Know Your Customer process and verify our users in advance to carry out deposits and withdrawals via bank transfer,” says Lukasz Zeligowski, Co-Founder of Kanga Exchange. “Trading cryptocurrencies is a very dynamic and fast-paced business; here, minutes matter. Furthermore, as with other financial transactions, there are always attempts by professional fraud machines to deprive currency holders of their assets. With Nect’s solution, we will offer our customers the fastest and most secure way available to protect their money and make the user experience as simple as possible.”
Nect CEO Benny Bennet Jürgens sees the partnership as a double success: “With Kanga Exchange, Matthias Lukiewicz, our Country Manager in Poland, has won a well-known customer from the Polish crypto industry and moved our expansion in Poland a big step forward. By entering the new, rapidly growing crypto trading sector, new use cases are also opening up for us within the framework of the ‘Know Your Customer’ process, which are currently not yet possible in Germany and can serve as a model.”
The Money Laundering Act in Germany currently only allows video identification procedures for the Know Your Customer (KYC) identification of bank customers and customers of other financial institutions, in addition to on-site identification, where the ID document is checked by a trained employee via real-time video. Identification by means of a qualified electronic signature, which is also part of the Nect portfolio, is permissible according to §13 GwG, but only in connection with a reference transfer to an account of the person to be identified. A fully automated identification procedure, such as that of Nect, is currently not listed among the approved identification procedures in the GwG.
Nect CEO Jürgens is therefore calling for the specification and implementation of the experimentation clause for the GwG, which was already passed by the Bundestag in 2021: “With the experimentation clause, fully automated identification procedures could also be used for financial transactions without additional, cumbersome reference transfers. Machine control already meets the security requirements. Furthermore, it has been shown several times in the past that the level of security in fully automated procedures exceeds that of human control. The machine delivers consistent quality. Humans, on the other hand, are not machines, which is why their performance naturally declines over time.”
With the implementation of the experimentation clause in the GwG, the basis for using Nect technology would also be created for German banks, fintechs, and crypto trading platforms, and the financial industry could also benefit from a simple and user-friendly option for KYC identification, Jürgens continues.
Nect GmbH is a multi-award-winning IT company based in Hamburg. Founded in 2017 by Benny Bennet Jürgens and Carlo Ulbrich, Nect stands for the implementation of fully automated trust services with highly advanced technology. The technology developed and patented by Nect was first used in 2018 in the form of Selfie-Ident, an AI-based online identification via app, at R+V Versicherung. Meanwhile, other well-known companies, including Telekom Deutschland, the Hamburgische Investitions- und Förderbank (IFB), and over 80 percent of German statutory health insurance funds, such as Barmer, belong to the customer base. In addition to Selfie-Ident, Nect offers a solution for qualified electronic signatures (QES) as well as the Nect Wallet, which functions as a digital ID and enables the reuse of digital identity in a few seconds. Nect’s Selfie-Ident is consistently rated by users in the App Store as the best procedure for identity verification.Data security and data protection are the focus of Nect solutions. This is ensured both by the complete in-house development of the software components and the use of data centers in Germany with an extraordinarily high security level and the avoidance of cloud solutions.
