7 ways to reduce document fraud in onboarding

Why edited documents get through

Onboarding and lending teams receive bank statements, payslips and identity documents as PDFs and photos. An edited figure, a borrowed ID or a payslip from someone else’s employer can look perfect on screen, and a visual check will not catch it reliably at volume.

The checks below are practical controls for real documents. Each one closes a gap that manual review leaves open.

1. Check every document for tampering

Run tamper and fraud checks on every statement and payslip, not just the ones that look suspicious. Edits to amounts, dates and names leave traces in the file that software can check consistently.

2. Match the payslip to the statement

A payslip should be paid into the account on the statement. Matching the net pay on the payslip to the salary credit on the statement catches borrowed or invented payslips that look fine on their own.

3. Verify identity against Home Affairs

Confirm the ID number, name and photo against Home Affairs rather than trusting the document in front of you.

4. Add liveness and a face match

A selfie with liveness, matched 1:1 against the Home Affairs photo, shows that the person applying is the person on the ID.

5. Check companies and directors too

For business customers, check the company and its directors against CIPC, and screen for sanctions and PEPs, so a real company is not used as cover.

6. Read the data, not just the document

When statements and payslips come back as structured data (net income, categorised transactions, debit orders), inconsistencies between documents stand out, and your rules can flag them before a person approves the file.

7. Keep the evidence

Record which checks ran, what they returned and who approved the result. When a decision is questioned later, the file should show exactly what was checked.