Ep. 7: What is KYB verification? Hal Lonas of Trulioo explains continuous monitoring and fraud prevention
EPISODE GUESTS
Hal Lonas is Chief Technology Officer at Trulioo, where he leads engineering and IT across the digital identity business.
He specialises in digital identity, cybersecurity and data-protection technology, with extensive experience building secure, scalable products. Before joining Trulioo, Hal held senior roles at OpenText, Carbonite and Webroot.
His current focus includes business verification, biometric identity checks, continuous monitoring and the technology needed to help organisations manage fraud and trust at scale.
SHOW NOTES
Key Topics Discussed:
Why demand for KYB verification is rising
What continuous KYB monitoring means in practice
How biometric verification can identify repeat bad actors
Balancing onboarding friction with fraud prevention
Using different verification journeys for different risk levels
How business risk can change after initial onboarding
The opportunities and risks associated with agentic AI
Why customer feedback shapes identity-verification products
Episode Summary:
This episode gets into KYB verification, and why it matters for fintechs, platforms and businesses onboarding commercial customers.
Hal Lonas, Chief Technology Officer at Trulioo, joins Grant Evans at Money20/20 USA to discuss business verification, biometric fraud controls, continuous monitoring and the growing pressure to make onboarding both safer and easier.
The conversation looks at a familiar commercial tension. Businesses need strong controls to stop fraud and meet compliance requirements, but every additional check can add friction to the customer journey. Hal explains how a risk-based approach allows organisations to choose different verification methods depending on the customer, transaction or level of risk.
What is KYB verification?
KYB verification, short for Know Your Business verification, is the process of checking that a business is genuine and understanding who an organisation is dealing with.
For fintechs, PSPs, platforms and other regulated businesses, that may involve checking company data, identity documents or biometric information. The right combination depends on the customer and the level of risk involved.
Hal’s central point is that KYB verification should not force every applicant through exactly the same journey. A higher-risk business may justify additional evidence or stronger identity checks, while an existing customer with a lower risk profile may be able to follow a simpler route.
That flexibility can help companies protect the business without making every onboarding journey unnecessarily difficult.
Why verification cannot stop after onboarding
A business can be legitimate when it first signs up and become riskier later. Its financial position may change. It may stop trading, change what it sells or begin operating in a way that no longer matches its original customer profile. A one-off onboarding check will not always identify those changes.
This is where continuous KYB becomes useful. Rather than treating business verification as a single approval decision, companies can monitor relevant changes over time and receive alerts when a customer’s circumstances shift.
For payment providers and platforms, that creates an opportunity to respond earlier rather than discovering a problem after losses, disputes or regulatory concerns appear.
How can businesses balance onboarding friction and fraud prevention?
Hal argues that the answer lies in giving businesses control over the verification journey. Trulioo’s approach can combine biometric authentication, document checks and data-only verification. Customers can then apply more or less friction depending on the risk involved.
A business onboarding a higher-risk customer may request stronger evidence. A lower-risk user or an existing customer being reverified may be able to complete a faster, less intrusive process.
This matters commercially because poor onboarding decisions carry a cost in both directions. Too little verification can increase exposure to fraud, while excessive friction can reduce conversion and damage the customer experience.
How biometric verification can stop repeat fraud
The episode also explores how biometric verification can be used to recognise faces that have previously been associated with suspicious activity.
Hal describes this as a record of previously seen bad actors. When the same individual tries to enter the system again, the business can identify the repeat attempt and stop it earlier.
This becomes increasingly important as generative AI makes it easier to create convincing identities, documents and fraudulent applications. Biometrics cannot solve every fraud problem, but it can add another layer of evidence alongside company data and document verification.
Where agentic AI fits
Hal is optimistic about agentic AI and its ability to complete tasks automatically in the background. He expects the technology to develop quickly and change how people and businesses interact with digital services.
He also warns against overhyping it.
For payments and fintech businesses, the practical question is not whether a company uses AI. The useful question is what the technology actually does, which problem it solves and whether it delivers a measurable improvement.
That distinction matters as providers face pressure to attach AI language to products before the underlying use case is fully proven.
Why customer insight matters to product development
Money20/20 gives Trulioo an opportunity to meet customers, speak with prospective buyers and understand where the market is heading.
Hal says customers are the company’s most important source of innovation because they bring both current problems and a view of what may become important over the next six, 12 or 18 months.
For technical and product teams, those conversations can help separate real operational needs from industry noise. They also provide a clearer view of where verification, fraud and onboarding requirements are likely to move next.
The big takeaway: KYB verification works best when it is treated as an ongoing, risk-based process rather than a one-off onboarding check. For fintechs, PSPs and platforms, that means matching the level of verification to the customer while continuing to watch for changes after approval. Get that right, and businesses can strengthen trust without adding unnecessary friction. Get it wrong, and they risk either letting fraud through or losing legitimate customers during onboarding.
MEET THE HOSTS
Co-Host and Co-Founder of The Payments Shed Podcast
Grant Evans
Grant Evans is a leading voice in the fintech industry and the creator of the widely followed ‘The Payments Shed Newsletter’. With more than 15 years experience shaping commercial strategy and driving partnership growth, he is recognised for turning complex topics such as embedded payments, BNPL, unified commerce, and open banking into clear, actionable insights that resonate with global audiences. Named a LinkedIn Top Voice in both 2024 and 2025, Grant has built a community of over 27,000 engaged professionals, merchants, and innovators who look to him for commentary on the trends redefining global commerce. A sought-after speaker and panelist, his thought leadership is regularly featured in financial services publications and at flagship industry events including Money 20/20, FTT Fintech and the Global RegTech Summit.
Co-Host and Co-Founder of The Payments Shed Podcast
Justin Hanna
Justin Hanna was recently named the #1 Head of Sales Top Voice by the National Sales Conference for good reason: he’s redefining what sales leadership looks like in the modern era. With deep B2B sales experience and a people-first approach, Justin earns trust through insight and practical strategy, not tired tactics. A respected voice in payments, he’s also built a 22,000-strong LinkedIn following by making complex topics relatable and actionable. His influence has been recognised widely: a LinkedIn Top Payment Systems Voice (2024), one of the top 30 voices shaping the future of payments, banking, and fintech (2025), and celebrated by the National Sales Conference as the #1 Head of Sales Top Voice. Known for challenging the status quo, Justin’s unfiltered take on leadership, culture, and growth resonates because it’s honest, and his ability to lead with both expertise and empathy has made him one of the most influential sales voices today.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Grant Evans:
Welcome, everybody, to The Payments Shed Walk and Talk. Today, we’re joined by Hal Lonas from Trulioo.
Hal, welcome to The Payments Shed. Please introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about your role and what Trulioo does.
Hal Lonas:
Thank you, Grant. It’s great to be here today.
I’m CTO at Trulioo. I head up engineering and IT within the business, and I have the fun of working with everything technical. That’s my role.
Grant Evans:
Brilliant.
US momentum has clearly been important for you lately. You’ve just announced a surge of around 2,000% in KYB volume. Can you tell us what is driving the demand for unified verification at the moment?
Hal Lonas:
It’s been incredible to see the growth, and there are a couple of things driving it.
There is always compliance and regulation. There is also the need to verify small businesses and manage trust and safety.
What’s really driving it is that businesses see the need to verify who they are doing business with. We’re now operating at high volumes and high accuracy rates, and we’re able to do much more than we could before.
Grant Evans:
You’ve also made a couple of exciting announcements this week.
The first one I wanted to discuss was around next-generation identity and AI. You’ve launched new biometric and continuous KYB capabilities. Can you tell us a little bit about that and why it is an important product move for you?
Hal Lonas:
It’s really important.
The next-generation biometric capability is particularly important. Everyone talks about generative AI and the fraud threat, and that threat is very real and prevalent in business.
One thing we’re now able to do is keep a record of faces and biometrics that we’ve seen before. You could think of it as a bad-actor roll call.
If one of those people appears again when applying to another business, we can stop the attempt in its tracks. There’s no reason to let bad actors keep entering the system and trying again and again. We can stop them straight away.
The continuous capability is also really interesting.
What we ask everybody is: wouldn’t you like to know if a business becomes risky at some point during its journey?
Businesses change all the time. Their financial position can change. They may no longer be operating, or, very importantly, they may change what they are selling.
We can continuously monitor a business. Our customers can enrol a business, watch those changes over time and receive proactive alerts if anything changes.
Grant Evans:
When is the actual launch?
Hal Lonas:
It’s ready to go now. It’s happening as we speak.
Grant Evans:
Brilliant. That’s really exciting for you.
As verification becomes faster and more automated, how do you maintain the balance between smooth onboarding and strong fraud prevention?
Hal Lonas:
That’s a great question.
We have a suite of products. We can perform biometric authentication, review documents or complete data-only verification.
The answer is that our customers get to choose their own journey. They can also choose that journey dynamically.
It isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. If they are onboarding somebody they consider a little riskier, they can introduce more friction into the process.
If they are reverifying a group of people and they are already fairly confident about the outcome, they can choose a lower-friction route.
Our customers decide what makes sense for them. We don’t force them down one route or another.
Grant Evans:
The biometric element is more prevalent than ever. We’ve also got agentic AI coming and some of the challenges that may create around the biometric progress we’ve made in payments.
I talk about this quite a lot. We moved towards one-time passwords and biometrics, and now something like agentic AI is entering the picture.
Do you have a view on where that might take us?
Hal Lonas:
I’m really excited about agentic AI. I think it opens things up.
For years, when people thought about AI, they pictured physical robots doing things for them. They thought about robots doing the laundry, washing the dishes or driving their cars.
What it’s turning out to be is that the robot is actually going to be in the cloud. It will do the things we want to have done automatically and behind the scenes.
I’m really excited about agentic AI. There may be a little hype around it now, but it’s going to arrive very quickly, and I think it is going to change our lives.
Grant Evans:
It’s definitely one of the most talked-about topics.
We’re at Money20/20 in the USA. Why is this such an important event for Trulioo to attend every year?
Hal Lonas:
For one thing, we get to meet our customers and prospective customers.
It’s also great for me, as a technology expert, to see what other people are talking about and get my finger on the pulse of advancements within the industry.
What is the latest high-tech development? What is the biggest breakthrough?
I look around and try to understand what those things are and what people are discussing in their messaging. It’s very interesting for me.
Grant Evans:
Payments is a slightly unusual industry in that respect.
One thing I love about Money20/20 is the collaboration that happens. There is a lot of competition, but competitors do collaborate.
People talk openly about the challenges they’re facing and how they’re dealing with them. That’s quite rare in sectors where businesses are often less open.
Hal Lonas:
It is quite rare. It’s good to have that collaboration.
We also get a great deal of collaboration and input from our customers.
Our customers are by far the most important source of innovation for us. They tell us about the problems they are dealing with now and what they anticipate will happen six, 12 or 18 months down the line.
That is valuable input for our engineering and product processes because it helps us work out what to do next.
Grant Evans:
Brilliant.
Hal, thanks for joining us on the Walk and Talk.
Before you go, we have a section at the end of each interview that is becoming quite renowned: The Shelf of Shame.
Guests bring one thing from fintech, payments or business in general that they would like to nominate for the shelf.
What would you like to nominate today?
Hal Lonas:
My nomination would be overhyped AI.
As much as I believe in agentic AI and what it could do in the future to improve our lives, I think we are in danger of overhyping it, overpromising and underdelivering.
I worry that we could enter a trough of despair where people become fatigued from hearing the terminology too often without seeing what the technology could actually deliver.
Grant Evans:
I think that’s a great one to call out.
There is definitely a hype train at the moment where everyone just says “AI”. You have to lift the bonnet and ask: what are you specifically doing with AI?
Hal Lonas:
You really do. That’s right.
Grant Evans:
Fantastic. I’m definitely putting that on the shelf.
Thanks for bringing your nomination, and thanks for joining us for a chat on The Payments Shed today.
Hal Lonas:
Thank you, Grant. I really appreciate the opportunity.
Grant Evans:
Awesome.
Join the podcast for a relaxed conversation where you can share your experience and perspective with people working across the payments industry.
Be a Guest on the Podcast
Sponsor the podcast and get your brand featured in front of the top players in the Payments and fintech industry.