Verification Channel Selection

Each verification channel has its own advantages and disadvantages. Choosing the appropriate verification channel based on the country/region where your business is developing can help increase the pass rate of the verification process and ensure account security. Many companies provide multiple verification methods for customers to choose from.

YCloud's verification API supports multiple verification channels, which you can quickly integrate at once:

SMS
WhatsApp
Voice
Email

SMS

SMS is the most popular two-factor authentication (2FA) and one-time password (OTP) channel because most people worldwide can receive text messages without barriers. Google research shows that SMS is an effective form of identity verification, helping to "block 100% of automated bots, 96% of bulk phishing attacks, and 76% of targeted attacks."

However, because SMS relies on the communication networks of operators around the world, its deliverability and cost per verification depend on the delivery infrastructure in the various countries/regions where your business operates. In countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, and China, the cost is low and deliverability is high, so this may not be an issue. But in some countries/regions in Southeast Asia and South America, SMS may not be the most cost-effective choice.

Secondly, due to the increasing global fraud risk and malicious attackers, if your application lacks effective countermeasures, it may cost a lot of message costs without getting real customers. Learn about defensive measures.

WhatsApp is the most popular social tool in over 100 countries/regions globally, with over 2 billion people interacting on WhatsApp every month. You can send verification messages to the corresponding WhatsApp account via phone number.

As a verification channel, it has the same advantages as SMS and is not affected by local operator infrastructure, does not charge for unsent messages, and is not susceptible to telecom network fraud. In India, Indonesia, the Middle East, and South America, we recommend that you use WhatsApp as the preferred verification channel, as it can improve your overall verification conversion rate and is cheaper.In other regions, it can be used as a backup channel for SMS.

YCloud Verify WhatsApp is not something you have to build from scratch but allows you to start sending OTPs immediately without message quantity and industry restrictions through a pre-approved WhatsApp shared phone number.

Voice

Voice verification is commonly used as the main backup for SMS identity verification. Although the delivery rates of SMS vary globally, voice verification has priority on operator networks.

In YCloud Verify, we integrate voice networks in more than 200 countries and support localization in 12 languages.

Similarly, it may be subject to attacks. International attackers will attempt to generate a large number of voice calls to certain phone numbers to profit from them.

Learn about defensive measures.

Email

Email is also a common verification channel, often used for account registration activation and two-factor authentication. In countries/regions such as the United States, Canada, and Europe, people frequently use email in their daily lives and work, and they are accustomed to using email addresses as account names. In this case, using email as the primary verification channel is a correct choice.

However, the shortcomings of email are also obvious. In many countries/regions worldwide, people do not frequently use email, and they may not even have the corresponding application installed. Another serious problem is that passwords can usually be reset via email. This means that an attacker only needs to compromise one factor, the customer's email inbox, to take over the corresponding account.

Finally
Still not sure which channel to use for verification? Contact us.