Financial sector rides digital nomad wave, bolsters security measures amid profit surge

By Puja Sharma

Regula’s global survey reveals fresh data on digital nomad’s impact on corporate profits. As the global developer of forensic devices and identity verification solutions found out, half of all businesses worldwide attribute a minimum of 21% of their new revenue to digital nomads. The US leads in this trend.      

The majority of the surveyed companies are now experiencing a tangible profit impact (more than 21% of the new revenue) due to the influence of digital nomads. In the United States, as many as 62% of businesses report that this is the case. On average, the nomad revenue share of new revenue varies from 10% to 40%.

The trend is surfacing across various industries. The most prominent achievers are companies from the Retail industry: 68% of them attribute 21% or more of their new revenue from these particular foreign customers. The same result is obtained by 66% of businesses in Telecom and Insurance, 64% of Financial and Banking institutions, 52% of companies in Digital services, and 48% of Healthcare providers.

On the flip side, digital nomads are also considered as a source of the increase in fraud. As a consequence of this, a third of businesses (34%) anticipate that they’ll need to raise their spending on identity verification by 11-20%. Businesses in Finance, Banking, and Insurance are the most serious about increasing their investments in ID verification solutions.

With more security threats arising, companies continue to adopt new identity verification technologies and approaches to detect and prevent fraud incidents. The research shows that 57% of businesses have implemented biometric authentication during the digital onboarding process, with another 30% planning to implement it within a year. Companies are also embracing electronic document verification (with 53% having already adopted this approach and 33% planning to do so soon), digital identity wallets (49% and 35%, respectively), and device fingerprinting (44% and 36%, respectively).

“Digital nomads are shaping a brand-new segment among target audiences of both Enterprises and SMB companies across different sectors—from Banking to Travel. This is having a positive effect on economies that are still experiencing post-pandemic consequences, along with the need to address recent challenges. To get the most out of attracting digital nomads whilst preventing a rise in fraud, companies need to refine their business processes, in particular IDV-related ones. Specifically, these changes should optimize foreign document processing and validation, as well as address a potential surge in their number,” said Henry Patishman, Executive Vice President of Identity Verification Solutions at Regula.