Second charge broker Fluent Money has thwarted an attempt by a fraudster to obtain a loan using a fake driving licence.
An ID scanning solution, which uses technology from TrustID Ltd, is used by Fluent to check documents confirming identity requested by lenders.
An application for a loan of £40,000, which had passed every standard check was rejected when the driving licence was scanned by the Fluent team and the TrustID validation system red flagged the licence as faked.
Tim Wheeldon, chief operating officer at Fluent Money, said: “Our responsibility as a partner to the lenders we support is to ensure good quality applicants.”
The machine reads and stores the printed information on the face of the documents, compares chip and machine readable zone data within passports, driving licenses, visas and identity cards and takes infrared scans of these documents.
Tony Machin, chief executive of Trust ID, said: “Fraudsters are becoming more sophisticated and we all need to be increasingly vigilant.
“A fake ID document can look authentic and to the naked eye may be indistinguishable from the real thing. It is only by scanning and validating the documents at a deeper level, that you can check whether they are genuine.
“Identity fraud is growing exponentially and lenders are vulnerable, particularly where they rely on third parties to authenticate documentation without the kind of scanning equipment that Fluent Money uses.”
emma.hughes@ft.com
