Dakota scaled its KYB processes across 100+ jurisdictions with Persona’s flexible global platform

Dakota is a crypto-integrated fintech company focused on helping businesses move money faster and more efficiently both domestically and internationally. It facilitates this by converting deposits into stablecoins, which can be used to complete cross-border, multi-currency transactions in as little as 15 minutes — far quicker than the days it typically takes through traditional banks. As a bonus, deposits are backed by U.S. treasuries, allowing for a higher yield than is offered by even the most competitive savings accounts. 

Problem: Dakota needed a KYB solution capable of supporting its global expansion

As a provider of payment, treasury, and other financial services, Dakota is required by law to evaluate each new customer for risks related to money laundering, the financing of terrorism, and other forms of fraud. In the past, Dakota achieved this via largely manual Know Your Business (KYB) and Know Your Customer (KYC) protocols, with a primary focus on US-based clients. 

But as Dakota began eyeing an international expansion, it realized that its existing KYB strategy wasn’t going to cut it. 

For one thing, the company’s existing manual processes would make it almost impossible to keep up with the increased volumes and demand an international expansion would bring. Additionally, branching into new countries would mean it would need to tailor its KYB processes to each new jurisdiction it entered to account for differences in language, ID types, business documents, database availability and coverage, compliance requirements, fraud risk, and more. 

“As our product offering shifted toward a more global customer base, we needed a KYB solution that provided global support,” says Ryan Bozarth, co-founder and CEO of Dakota. “Ideally, one that also included KYC components that could be used to complete ultimate beneficial ownership (UBO) verification so we didn’t need two different solutions.”

Solution: Dakota leverages Persona's flexible, automated KYB and KYC tools to meet compliance while scaling

As it began researching options, Dakota was impressed by Persona’s ability to offer all of the features and capabilities it needed in a single solution. 

“Persona’s expansive feature set meant that we didn’t have to make any concessions in choosing a solution,” says Ryan. “We didn’t have to settle for a subpar experience just because we needed global support, for example. Persona offered the breadth and depth we needed — without requiring trade-offs.”

At the end of the day, Dakota ultimately chose to partner with Persona for a number of reasons, including:

Robust, global support

Dakota’s main priority when picking a KYB and KYC solution was finding one that could support their expansion into new regions. 

“It was surprisingly difficult to find a vendor that had strong global support for both KYB and KYC,” says Ryan. “A lot of solution providers say they have a global product, but when you dive a little deeper, you realize that it’s only surface level. When we looked at Persona’s global capabilities, we could tell that the team actually put in the work to be able to offer a truly global product.”

Ryan points to business registration documents, which play a big role in Dakota’s KYB process. While many KYB solutions support the collection of international business documents, Persona stood out by actually being able to verify those documents in more than 100 (and growing) jurisdictions. This verification empowers Dakota to immediately check that its customers are uploading the correct documents that it needs to perform KYB — and if not, prompt them to resubmit the correct documents right then and there, eliminating costly and time-consuming back-and-forth. 

“Those verification capabilities save us an incredible amount of time versus needing to have someone on the team manually verify them,” Ryan says. 

Persona’s access to authoritative databases and issuing sources in more than 40 countries, the ability to extract data from a range of documents in more than 90 supported countries, VAT verifications, and other capabilities were also instrumental factors that Dakota took into consideration.

KYB and KYC in one product

While a big part of KYB centers around verifying information about the business itself — its business registration, address, Secretary of State filing, VAT number (EU), etc. — it also involves verifying a company’s ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs). 

In an effort to streamline its RegTech stack, Dakota ideally wanted a single solution that could meet both its KYB and KYC needs. Unfortunately, not all KYB solutions provide KYC services — and those that do don’t always deliver on the global support front. 

With Persona, Dakota is able to collect and verify government-issued IDs to verify UBOs in more than 200 countries and territories. Additional verification methods (such as selfie verification) can also be deployed for additional assurance that a user isn’t submitting a fake or stolen ID to skirt detection. 

The ability to cross-check UBOs against more than 100 global warning, sanctions, and watchlists means that Dakota can go deeper if and when it needs more context around a particular individual. 

Naturally, this can be a lot to keep track of — especially when further investigation is needed. In those situations, Dakota leverages Persona’s case management tool, Cases, to organize and track its investigations. 

A flexible, dynamic platform

KYB and KYC aren’t one-size-fits-all. What works for one business may not work for another. And what works for a business in one jurisdiction may not work for that same business in another jurisdiction, where different laws and regulations often translate into different compliance requirements. 

With its support of over 100 jurisdictions, Dakota knew that a cookie-cutter approach wasn’t going to cut it. Persona’s modular approach to KYB and KYC gave Dakota the flexibility it needed to build a custom strategy tailor-fit to its needs. 

“We were impressed by just how dynamic Persona’s platform is,” said Ryan. “With such an expansive set of features, we were able to pick and choose the specific verifications, risk signals, and documents that mattered to us — as well as our downstream banking partners — in building our global KYB program.”

At the same time, Ryan notes that KYB and fraud prevention are rarely static. Regulations change. Technologies change. The needs of downstream partners change. Fraud trends change. 

“We needed a flexible solution that we knew could adapt with the business, especially as we continue to learn new things about fraud and how fraudsters work.”

Glowing recommendations 

One final consideration that helped Dakota make its decision is the fact that Persona came with a lot of strong recommendations from other companies. 

“When we began this search, I would ask peers and founders at other organizations and startups if they had any recommendations,” says Ryan. “And a number of them spoke highly of Persona.”

These referrals and recommendations gave Dakota confidence that it was making the right choice in selecting Persona as a partner. 

Results: Dakota was able to scale into over 200 jurisdictions around the world while achieving KYB speeds 3-4X faster than previous methods

With Persona’s global KYB and KYC solution, Dakota has successfully expanded its operations into over 200 jurisdictions — while significantly reducing the amount of time it takes for new customers to complete the KYB process. 

“Performing KYB reviews would take us three to four times longer if we weren’t using Persona,” says Ryan. “The ability to automate many verifications and checks really drives down our time to review, and with it, costs.”

As Dakota continues to scale its business, it’s excited about potentially finding new ways of leveraging Persona’s suite of identity tools to support those efforts.