“Failure doesn't happen when you fail, it happens when you decide to stop trying.”
Welcome to this exclusive interview of ValiantCEO. Today’s interview guest is Shahid Hanif, the man behind Shufti Pro, a top-performing IDV company serving over 1,000+ enterprises.
In 2015, Mr. Shahid completed his graduation in Computer Science from the University of Hertfordshire. After 1 year, he completed his Master’s in Artificial intelligence from the University of Edinburgh. He has worked in several tech companies before. However, after a few years of working as a senior software engineer, Mr. Shahid decided to start his own AI-based SaaS startup.
The idea emerged after facing some unfortunate incidences whilst having his identity verified by various KYC service providers. After thorough research on the challenges in the IDV industry and how they can be overcome, he laid the foundation of Shufti Pro in 2017.
Today we’ll uncover the remarkable journey of Shufti Pro and how it helps enterprises comply with global KYC and AML regulatory requirements. We’ll also ask Mr. Shahid about the vision behind his company and the core reasons behind its success.
Learn from Mr. Shahid about the challenges he faced during the journey of their successful start-up and how he overcame those challenges whilst maintaining a healthy user experience and eliminating all kinds of ID fraud from the digital world.
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Table of Contents
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company
Shahid Hanif: Hello to the ValiantCEO team and all the readers. My name is Shahid Hanif, and I’m a Pakistani entrepreneur, CTO, and Co-founder at Shufti Pro.
A global leader in identity verification solutions, Shufti Pro offers all kinds of KYC and AML solutions to organisations all around the world. I believed in AI’s transformative potential, specifically in revolutionizing the IDV industry, as it was highly compromised and in need of a robust and accurate solution.
Recognizing the limitations of human-powered services, I utilised AI to combat ID scams and provide businesses with secure, compliant solutions. This vision turned out in the creation of Shufti Pro.
If you were in an elevator with Warren Buffett, how would you describe your company, your services or products? What makes your company different from others? What is your company’s biggest strength?
Shahid Hanif: Well, if I were in an elevator with Warren Buffett and had to introduce my company, I would say: “Hi, I’m Shahid Hanif, CTO of Shufti Pro, an award-winning IDV service provider, serving over 240+ countries and territories in 150+ languages.
We’ve served hundreds of companies by providing them with all kinds of compliance solutions, including KYC, KYB, KYI, AML, Risk assessment OCR, document verification and e-IDV.
With access to 1700+ financial crime watchlists, we’re one of those few IDV providers that synergize humans and artificial intelligence to perform user verification with 99.77% accuracy in a matter of seconds”.
I would tell him that our biggest strength is the trust of our clients. We have achieved a 92% customer satisfaction rate from Crozdesk. Moreover, Shufti Pro has served a variety of small to large-scale global enterprises and has been awarded with multiple RegTech publications.
I would also ask them if they are seeking a top-notch ID verification solution for secure online customer onboarding, Shufti Pro can be their all-in-one solution. We provide a robust KYB, KYC and AML service integration, which would help him avoid any potential fraud risk and add more transparency to his business which will ultimately bring more success to his name.
Quiet quitting, The Great Resignation, is an ongoing trend causing many businesses to struggle to keep talent engaged and motivated. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued, and misunderstood in the workplace. In your experience, what keeps employees happy? And how are you adapting to the current shift we see?
Shahid Hanif: No doubt “The Great Resignation” is an ongoing economic trend. I was reading something the other day that 39.5 million resignation reports occurred in 2021, which is 40% higher than in 2019, which tells Great Resignation is not a pandemic-driven anomaly.
The sense of belonging, where they are valued, respected and engaged, is what fosters a happiness score of the employees. They want to be recognised for their work and achievements, keeping them motivated. Additionally, salary packages play an essential role in the retention rate and happiness score of the workforce.
We’ve adapted to the current shift, by screening the potential talents and giving them a zone of challenges to concentrate on their strengths.
Assisting them in the work and providing training where they need, tends to provide us a better employee engagement rate and keep them motivated.
Moreover, we arrange several events and activities to keep our workforce engaged whilst eliminating their distress or burnout, which keeps our office culture healthy.
Here is a two-fold question: What is the book that influenced you the most and how? Please share some life lessons you learned. Now what book have you gifted the most and why?
Shahid Hanif: “Rich Dad Poor Dad” is the most influential book that I’ve read in my life. It tells the true perspective of money, wealth, and financial sense.
The book takes the reader on a journey towards financial independence and explains the importance of financial stability in life.
From that book, I’ve learned the pure difference between assets and liability, the importance of assets, and how the quality of service impacts the business in a long life.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as THE real challenge right now?
Shahid Hanif: In my industry, producing accurate results and data security is the biggest challenge right now.
We put huge efforts into training AI a lot through deep learning, and that’s not a budget task; we needed funding for that. Even after the investment was collected, the next challenge was to train AI to match faces, spot ID spoofing, and distinguish between 2D & 3D objects.
It took us a lot of time, money, and resources, but we did it. Today, our AI accuracy is 99.77%, and it’s constantly improving.
Talking about data security, we’ve zero tolerance for the users’ privacy in our company. Our data centres adhere to industry-leading security standards, multi-layered firewalls, and intrusion detection systems, and we do regular security audits to identify and neutralise potential vulnerabilities.
Shufti Pro is certified with several international data security standards, including GDPR, PCI, CCPA, and most importantly, ISO 2700:2013, which is a testament to our efforts in securing customers’ data.
2020, 2021, 2022 threw a lot of curve balls into businesses on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past years, how can businesses thrive in 2023? What lessons have you learned and what advice would you share?
Shahid Hanif: I would advise new entrepreneurs that in order to succeed, find the problem that the market is facing and work on it diligently. Keep working on it, and never get disappointed with the failures. There is a saying that I sacredly follow and it says, “Failure doesn’t happen when you fail, it happens when you decide to stop trying.”
Additionally, it is not necessary to create a complete solution on your first attempt, keep trying, stay consistent, and your idea will work sooner or later.
Lastly, I would suggest sticking to a specific niche instead of covering a broad field. This approach will assist entrepreneurs in focusing on their efforts, understanding their target audience better, and becoming an expert in that particular area, which can ultimately help them to emerge even in 2023.
On a lighter note, if you could pick any business superpower, what would it be and how would you put it into practice?
Shahid Hanif: Well, if I could opt for any business superpower, I would like to have anything that will remove all the scammers in the world.
Every year, 1.4 million ID fraud reports, equivalent to a financial loss of about $10 billion, causing people to lose their hard-earned money and spreading emotional distress.
This is something that pinches me and that’s why I’d use my superpowers to send all the identity fraudsters behind bars and make the digital world 100% secure.
Jerome Knyszewski, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Shahid Hanif for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Shahid Hanif or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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