CUSTOMER: Veridian Credit Union

A Q&A with Kristin Clark of Veridian Credit Union

In an exclusive conversation with Plaid, Kristin Clark, Manager of Web Development at Veridian Credit Union, shares how the financial cooperative has partnered with Plaid to stay ahead of fraud while bringing the best possible digital experience to their members.

To make their vision of digital-first banking a reality for their members, Veridian Credit Union needed an anti-fraud solution that was low in member friction and high in security. Using Plaid’s full stack of fraud protections, including Plaid IDV, Veridian ensures a quick and easy member experience that makes no compromise when it comes to fraud.

In this Q&A, Kristin Clark, Manager of Web Development at Veridian, discusses why the company opts for Plaid’s suite of online account opening solutions, why it’s important to prioritize a multi-layered approach to fraud, and what financial institutions should be doing today to stay one step ahead. 

Plaid: Tell us a little about Veridian.

Kristin: Veridian Credit Union is a not-for-profit financial cooperative owned by the 340,000 members who use our products and services. Our mission is to partner with our members to create successful financial futures—a mission that has never wavered since our founding ninety years ago. All that has changed is how we do it. Today, we support our members by offering a full range of business and consumer financial services through a variety of digital self-service channels, so that every member’s closest branch is right in their pocket.

Plaid: How does Plaid help Veridian achieve this?

Kristin: Plaid is the leader in online account opening. Veridian has been a customer since 2021, when we turned to Plaid for their suite of account verification solutions in order to comply with Nacha’s Web Debit Account Validation rule, introduced to reduce the risk of fraud. These solutions replaced the manual account opening experiences, driving a new member acquisition channel for our credit union. They also created a better user experience with a more intuitive way to fund newly opened accounts.

Since then, our sights have been set on expanding that same level of ease to all aspects of our members’ experience. But that means we must also ensure the highest level of security. Plaid IDV allows us to do both without having to make sacrifices. Our members get fast, low-friction onboarding while we get advanced security and real-time risk signals covering phone and email risk, stolen and synthetic identity risk, and much more—all of which require no additional steps from the user.

Plaid: Why did you decide to prioritize an identity verification solution?

Kristin: As fraudsters get more sophisticated, a single fraud check method simply doesn't cut it. To stay ahead, a multi-layered approach is required. Adding checks like ID scanning and liveness detection was a top priority for us.

Plaid: Did you ever consider going with multiple vendors instead?

Kristin: Prior to integrating Plaid IDV, we were using another vendor for our verification process. Like many banks and credit unions, our goal was to build a layered approach using different vendors. The problem is that individual anti-fraud checks work in silos. We came to understand that a stronger solution is one in which all the anti-fraud checks speak to each other—and one way this can be achieved is through a single, multi-layered solution like Plaid’s. Moreover, having to connect to multiple providers can quickly get cumbersome and costly, so restructuring to a single vendor for multiple key points helped us streamline. And since we were already a Plaid customer, it made perfect sense.

Plaid: What made Plaid IDV stand out among competitors?

Kristin: Flexibility in a partner is very important and Plaid IDV offers multiple integration options. These include an API-only integration that allows us to control the front-end experience or a conversion-optimized user interface that could be leveraged out of the box. Not only does this meet our current needs, but it also allows us to expand to other use cases as we grow.

Technology like this is typically appreciated by either the front-end teams focused on user experience or the back-end teams focused on security—but rarely both. Plaid IDV was welcomed across the board at Veridian because it allows each department to function as needed, without compromise.

Plaid: Did the financial account matching functionality influence your decision to go with Plaid IDV? Is this a feature you’re leveraging?

Kristin: Yes to both! Financial account matching allows us not only to verify a member’s identity for KYC, but also to view the identity data on their bank account to cross compare. That’s a massive security improvement that gives our staff additional peace of mind when assuring an applicant is who they say they are. Plaid is the only company in a position to offer this—so it was a huge selling point.

Plaid: Are you utilizing any other additional features, such as autofill or Remember Me?

Kristin: Indeed we are. Autofill was actually a key functionality that attracted us to Plaid IDV. It was our hope that we could further streamline our application flow by speeding up the verification process for our members, as well as by avoiding them having to re-enter their information a second time. Remember Me is great, as well, because it saves returning Plaid users even more time.

Plaid: How did the integration process go for Plaid IDV?

Kristin: From start to finish, the entire integration process took only three months and was quite smooth—thanks in part to Plaid’s support team, who was very responsive. The API documentation was also extremely clear and reassured us that we were leveraging all the features properly.

Likewise, the Plaid IDV Editor, which is the control interface for Plaid IDV’s settings, made everything a breeze to understand. Nothing was hidden in any code or needed to be translated by our compliance or development teams. In fact, settings can be adjusted without having to engage our development team, which means greater operational efficiency.

Plaid: What impact have you seen since going live?

Kristin: Our processing time for online applications has decreased significantly. By obtaining verified identity information so early in the process, our internal teams save an enormous amount of time and our members enjoy a better experience because we don’t need to re-ask them for any information.

In fact, since launching Plaid IDV, our requests for additional documents from applicants have decreased by 25%. We’ve also seen a 20% decrease in declined applications, and because each application takes 15-20 minutes to review, this translates into huge time savings for our teams. This time can be devoted instead to what really matters—making the Veridian experience the best it can possibly be for our members.

Plaid: You’re planning to leverage Plaid Beacon, our fraud consortium solution and Veridian’s sixth Plaid product! What drove your interest in Beacon?

Kristin: Fraudsters rarely try to defraud one company alone, so the more we all share fraud-related data, the better. The ability to tap into this data across financial companies has the potential to be game changing—and Plaid brings the necessary network scale and expertise to make it a reality. We all have a role to play in helping stop the chain reaction of fraud.

Plaid: What advice would you give other credit unions looking to stay ahead of fraud?

Kristin: The landscape of fraud is always changing, so be open to new protection methods and proactive in your decision making. One of those decisions should involve finding a partner who offers a layered solution. You might not think you need things like behavioral analytics, stolen and synthetic risk scores, or device fingerprinting—but they’re incredibly powerful tools to tap into. When it comes to fraud, solving for yesterday’s problem means adopting tomorrow’s solution.

Plaid: What’s next for Veridian?

Kristin: We’re excited to continue working on our self-service applications to enhance them for both current and prospective members. As we do so, we’re constantly evaluating new products and functionalities from Plaid as potential means to help make this vision a reality.