NFC-Based ID Verification for Remote Onboarding and Account Recovery

Published Date : 11/5/2025 

Despite a significant rise in identity fraud attempts, businesses are struggling to fully understand and combat the issue. Signicat's latest report, in collaboration with CCGroup and Red Goat Cyber Security, highlights the growing threat and suggests NFC-based identity verification as a robust solution. 

Businesses are claiming success in battling identity fraud at a solid rate despite a spike in attempts, but Signicat’s latest report, published in collaboration with CCGroup and Red Goat Cyber Security, suggests their understanding of the situation is holding them back.

Fraud attempts are up 88 percent over the last four years, while identity fraud attempts specifically have risen nearly 70 percent. The culprits are the growth of AI, but also the rising sophistication of scammers who are defrauding at scale.

In the report, titled The Battle in the Dark, Signicat argues that companies are not entirely aware of how large the issue is: Almost three-quarters of businesses say they are successfully fighting identity fraud and its consequences. But the numbers tell a different story. On average, businesses spend 22 percent of their annual revenue on either covering damages of identity fraud or attempts to prevent it, says the research. One in five transactions and customer onboarding attempts are fraudulent. Attackers primarily target customers, followed by weaknesses in technology systems.

When businesses push back, it doesn’t deter the more agile fraudsters, who simply change tactics. There are multiple vulnerable points throughout the customer journey that need protection – with the transaction stage being the most exposed, accounting for 40 percent of identity fraud attempts.

One of the ways to increase identity security and cut fraud is employing NFC after user onboarding, for account recovery processes, Signicat explained in a recent webinar. Efficient account recovery not only saves costs but also increases security, says Signicat, while efficiency can be achieved by integrating identity verification with Near-Field Communication (NFC) chips. The Norwegian identity verification firm has been providing the technology to BankID, an identification service developed by Swedish banks, which has become one of the most widely adopted digital ID schemes in the world.

BankID has been introducing NFC-based identity verification since 2024 and has so far recorded 680,000 app activations and 400,000 password resets using the technology, according to Ove Morten Stalheim, product manager at Stø, owned by BankID BankAxept AS. Stø is in charge of integrating technology into the BankID ecosystem. According to its data, around half of total activations and 60 percent of all password resets in BankID were done through NFC chips in September. And the numbers are growing.

NFC-based identity verification, we believe, is increasingly accepted as a gold standard for remote identity document verification, says Maarten Wegdam, co-founder of Inverid, a part of Signicat. ReadID, the NFC technology used by Signicat, collects data from chips embedded in passports, ID cards, and residence permits, obtaining information about the owner and a high-resolution facial image which can be used for verification. Once the data is submitted to BankID through the app, the customer takes a selfie image and biometric matching is performed by BankID’s partner iProov.

The biggest benefit of using NFC chips is that they are cryptographically signed and cannot be deepfaked. It also avoids mistakes that can happen during OCR (Optical Character Recognition) reading of documents. It also has a higher customer conversion rate, up to 96 percent, notes Wegdam. Stø believes that NFC-based identity verification will keep growing, especially in countries such as Norway, where all identity documents are equipped with chips. The Norwegian trust framework also allows the use of passports and national ID cards for completing administration through BankID, Stalheim adds.

There are no longer valid identity cards or passports that don’t contain a chip. So for us, the choice is using NFC to prevent fraud, he says. 

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS): 

Q: What is the main finding of Signicat's report on identity fraud?

A: Signicat's report, The Battle in the Dark, highlights a significant increase in identity fraud attempts and suggests that businesses are underestimating the scale of the issue.

Q: How does NFC technology help in identity verification?

A: NFC technology collects data from chips embedded in identity documents, providing a cryptographically signed and deepfake-resistant method of verification.

Q: What are the benefits of using NFC for account recovery?

A: NFC-based identity verification increases security, reduces costs, and has a higher customer conversion rate, up to 96 percent.

Q: How is BankID using NFC technology?

A: BankID, a widely adopted digital ID scheme, has integrated NFC-based identity verification for app activations and password resets, recording significant usage and growth.

Q: Why is Norway a leading example in NFC-based identity verification?

A: Norway is a leading example because all its identity documents are equipped with chips, and the Norwegian trust framework supports the use of NFC for identity verification in various administrative processes. 

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