V-Serve (Verified Services)

Inspiration

On a day-to-day basis, many people are falling victims to different kind of frauds. Apart from the money, people also lose their bank account information along with other private details. Literacy, vigilance or education may not help at some point. "The present pandemic has led to a total transformation in our lifestyle and the future of business. In the current trend, we have a lot of dependency on the online services. But how do we rely on these services when it comes to online. When we need a freelancer or a daily wage worker, we don’t really know whom to contact and how to contact. The sad fact being most our service providers were guest workers. The one main question that we all have in mind is the question of TRUST. Also, during this pandemic we have also seen situations where most of the daily wage workers have lost their jobs, a huge number of NRI and NRK have returned back to the country. All of them are in need of jobs. How do they find jobs sitting at home? And if they find something online how do they trust them. So, in a virtual era, how to we ensure the credibility of these services.

What it does

Are you struggling to find trusted services in this virtual era? Then our solution is to provide a Financial Services Platform, V-Serve (Verified-Services) for promoting safety and integrity in solopreneurs business during the post COVID era. V-serve embraces a concept of having Verified Services by non-competent governmental agencies like Banks, Mobile Service Providers and so on as a precautionary measure against frauds. V-Serve provides authentic services in collaboration with the FFDC banks and credit unions, where the verification process will be done with Unique Identification (UID), SSN consuming the Finastra FFDC Customer Onboarding API. Here all the services and payments will be routed through FFDC customer banks and credit unions. Only customers with legible bank accounts can request for verification to provide services which makes the services more reliable and safer for the consumers. While enrolling, they will be asked to provide their details like address, skillset, expected pay and upload their picture. Will have a feedback and rating system available within the platform. This ensures that the platform will list you the top-rated service provider. Verified owners can also post job opportunities through the portal. So, if they need to post a job, in they need to get themselves verified first.

Since we do not have a centralized verification system for guest workers in India, this can be a solution for common men to take cautious decisions and prevent fraud activities to at least some extend.

How we built it

Solopreneurs who hold a legible bank account can request for verification through this portal and become a registered user. Once a request for verification is submitted with all the relevant information and supporting documents, their service will be made available in V-Serve portal. Verification will be done automatically by consuming the FFDC Customer Onboarding API. Once the details are cross verified with the FFDC KYC data, they will be either verified or rejected by the home banks or credit unions making ‘VERIFICATION’ a symbol of TRUST. And the customers get to see a verified service providers list in the bank’s website ; These providers typically hold accounts with the bank

Challenges we ran into

Finding a Fintech aspect to the project was a bit challenging. But since we were able to consume the FFDC Customer Onboarding API we were able to design the solution. Forethought - Another challenge would be if any fraud action happens from the verified customer's side we need to have a mitigation plan. Currently the reviews and ratings will help the fraud chain to break and carry forward. We can also have a complaint option as an immediate notification to the Bank Admin and auto hold/reject the service.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

The concept of V-Serve was highly appreciated by the Kerala Cyber dome for Fraud prevention

What we learned

Use of FFDC APIs with external APIs, UI design and development

What's next for V-Serve (Verified Services)

• Business Units or Enterprise verification • E-Commerce Portal • Verified Job Search • Payment Processing • Login using OTP • Auto recommendations using AI/ML • Two-way verification process - Validation by consuming any bank Customer Onboarding API and validating the location through mobile service provider • Identity Verification and Facial Recognition to validate the Requesters • Provision for the Service Providers to request for stopping service • Provision for service renewal after a specific period