Introduction:

Recently, the renowned consulting firm Forrester released an IDV trends report titled The State Of Identity Verification In The Financial Services Industry (April 2, 2025). Alibaba Cloud's Financial-Level ID Verification product have been mentioned among the noted implementation cases cited in the report.

In the digital era, the financial services firms face increasingly complex security challenges and business competition, particularly with the emergence of facial forgery technologies such as Deepfake, driven by Generative AI (GenAI) and large model technologies. These advancements have already led to multiple incidents involving asset losses amounting to hundreds of millions of yuan.

• • In February 2024 – Multinational engineering firm Arup fell victim to a Deepfake scam, resulting in a HKD 200 million loss at its Hong Kong branch.
  • In August 2024 – South Korea exposed a mass Deepfake pornographic content crime incident, with the victims involving female students from more than 500 schools and female celebrities, igniting nationwide protests.
  • Video face-swapping fraud is proliferating: In 2022 alone, the U.S. reported 2.2 million financial fraud cases linked to large model technologies.

Identity Verification (IDV) serves as the most robust shield in the facial forgery attack-defense chain.

In the report, Forrester believes that the three core competitive advantages of IDV should be: "seamless, efficient, and secure". According to Forrester, “A seamless onboarding experience is crucial, and identity verification plays a pivotal role in ensuring that the process is smooth and secure.”

Seamless: Flexible integration with out-of-the-box deployment and rapid connectivity.

Efficiency: Requires integrated delays and near-real-time detection and auditing, enabling seamless user journey.

Security: Not only do they need to have card/document forgery detection, active liveness verification capabilities, but they also need to have strong protection against new risks in the GenAI era represented by Deepfake.

Alibaba Cloud's Financial-Level ID Verification product, honed through years of refinement and agile iteration, has been deployed across business scenarios of top-tier clients globally. This report introduced a leading Chinese bank is showcased as a featured implementation case.

• One Chinese bank, experiencing a 0.09% breakthrough rate of deepfake facial attacks, implemented Alibaba Cloud’s IDV products, which provide real-time detection via advanced facial recognition and anticounterfeiting algorithms.
  

Alibaba Cloud ID Verification has achieved full-platform coverage across China and international portals, supporting multiple integration methods including native SDK, web SDK, and API interfaces. The product delivers atomic-level capabilities in OCR, liveness detection, facial biometric comparison, and authoritative data source verification, establishing industry-leading security benchmarks in facial anti-spoofing and document fraud prevention. Currently serving thousands of enterprise clients across financial lending, interactive entertainment, transportation, and e-commerce sectors, and it has received deep validation from top-tier enterprises.

Atomic Modular Capabilities & Flexible Business Integration

Delivers a comprehensive eKYC framework supporting OCR recognition, liveness detection, facial comparison, and element verification as independently deployable modules. Clients can configure anti-fraud capabilities, anti-spoofing detection and single-element verification according to business needs, enabling seamless transitions between standardized workflows and customized risk controls to address multi-region compliance requirements.

The Face Guard Module (Originality)

In 2019, Alibaba Cloud first proposed the concept of "Face Guard" as a core capability to combat risks and ensure security at the devices. Built on Alibaba Cloud's years of accumulated expertise in risk control and defense, Face Guardian integrates industry-leading device fingerprinting, endpoint environment detection, and a powerful risk control detection engine to provide robust security protection for mobile environments. As an independent security module, the face guard module can be seamlessly integrated with Alibaba Cloud's KYC SDK or deployed as a standalone solution within existing KYC workflows to enhance risk mitigation and supplement existing processes.

Mature Algorithmic Models to Combat Deepfake Threats

Alibaba Cloud's ID Verification product continues to drive innovation amid the AI technology revolution, leveraging its industry-leading multimodal liveness detection and document anti-counterfeiting algorithms to counter 3D mask attacks, high-definition video, AI-generated synthetic face spoofing, PS-altered images and fraudulent document risks. Alibaba Cloud safeguards industries such as finance, government, and internet with intelligent and reliable identity verification defenses, ensuring seamless business operations.

Alibaba Cloud Infrastructure Acceleration for Enhanced Performance

Alibaba Cloud ID Verification leverages its premium global network infrastructure to enable proximity-based access worldwide, reducing latency and accelerating service response. Utilizes 3,200+ edge nodes and an intelligent routing system to pre-cache static resources. Users can proximity-based access to optimal user experience. Its global edge deployment architecture ensures seamless access for global users.

Multi-Region Deployment for Compliance Requirement

Alibaba Cloud ID Verification now achieves full deployment across China and international portals, with service nodes covering Mainland China and Hong Kong, and ongoing expansion into global strategic regions including Singapore, Indonesia, and Frankfurt. Through compliance capacity development, the solution meets full data compliance requirement with multiple industries while supporting global business expansion for clients across financial services, e-commerce, and transportation sectors.

As large models continue to evolve, the fight against black market activities will intensify. The security of identity verification for enterprises has transformed from a mere "security line" into a crucial battleground for survival. In the struggle against deep fakes, IDV (Identity Verification) serves as the most robust shield. Alibaba Cloud Security will continue to explore ways to make this shield ever sharper and more fearless.