Bank customer verification
Fraudsters call your customers as your fraud team, and call your staff as your customers. Both sides need a way to prove who is on the line, under the name your customers already trust.
Trust Onion puts two-way identity verification in an app branded as your bank. Customers verify the bank. The bank verifies the customer.
Book a security review For security teams: how it’s secured
The next call from her might not be her.
The ground shifted
An attacker who controls a customer’s inbox and phone number, and has cloned her voice, can pass each check below. The same tools let a stranger sound like your fraud team.
Your fraud team already watches logins, devices and payment patterns. AI adds the voice: a clone built from about 15 seconds of public audio, from a voicemail greeting or a social video, can sound like your customer. A text code goes wherever the number has been moved, and recognizing a voice was never possible across thousands of customers.
A phishing link or a reused password gives the attacker the customer’s email, so email confirmation passes and old statements show who she pays and when.
A SIM swap or carrier port-out moves the customer’s phone number, so caller ID matches and a text code or callback reaches the attacker.
About 15 seconds of public audio can be enough to clone a voice, and a video call can be faked the same way. See how easy it is.
A new payee and an urgent transfer, a raised limit, or a card sent to a new address, from a customer who says she can’t come in.
Each device generates the three words locally. They rotate every 60 seconds, out of reach of anyone holding only the inbox and number.
#5308 · $48,500 · New payee
Elena Ruiz (phone)
WITH THE BANK
Rotates every 60 secondsGenerated on this phone
Both directions
Many bank scams start with a call that claims to be you: a call from “your bank’s fraud team” asking a customer to move money to a “safe account” or read out a code. Attackers also pose as customers to move their money, and as family members to each other. One app in your bank’s name covers every one of those calls.
The same three live words verify the bank calling a customer and a customer calling the bank. Customers and their families also verify each other in their own groups, with words the bank never sees.
When your bank calls a customer
The customer asks, “What are the words?” Your staff read all three from the staff view, and the customer checks them in the app before sharing anything.
“Elena, this is Merriton fraud prevention. Your account is at risk. Move your balance to this safe account now.” Elena asks for the words. When the caller can’t give them, she hangs up and calls the number on her card.
When a customer calls your bank
Your banker asks, “What are the words?” The customer reads all three from their Merriton ID Verify app, and your banker checks them on the request before acting.
When a customer’s family gets a call
Customers run their own family group in the same Merriton ID Verify app, with three words the bank never sees. When Elena’s son calls from a new number saying he lost his phone and needs money for rent, she asks, “What are the words?” before she sends anything.
The rule never changes: whoever places the call says the words. Whoever answers checks them.
What’s at stake
Every call that uses your bank’s name, real or fake, draws on the trust that name has earned.
The new standard
Whoever places the call gives three live words, and whoever answers checks them, in one question. For doubtful requests, a signed live selfie adds proof, and your existing controls still run before money moves.
Either side calls. Your customer’s device generates three live words in your bank’s app, and the words rotate every 60 seconds.
Your staff see the same words. They appear on the request in the staff view.
Whoever answers asks. When the customer calls, your banker asks “What are the words?” When your bank calls, the customer asks, and your staff read them from the staff view.
Any doubt, a Proofie™. Your banker requests a live selfie, signed by the customer’s passkey after a Face ID, fingerprint, or passcode check. The signature covers the exact photo plus the time and place, and any edit breaks verification.
WITH THE BANK
New words in 42s
Rotates every 60 secondsGenerated on this phone
Merriton Bank asked for a Proofie™ to confirm a request.
Take a live selfie. Your passkey signs it after Face ID, fingerprint, or passcode.
Take Proofie™Face ID unlocked the key
Fingerprint watermark
Proofie™
MRb5…h3Lw
Verified by Merriton
Swipe for the next screen
Inside your payment approvals
When a customer asks by phone to add a payee, send a wire, raise a limit or change their contact details, the three live words appear on the request in the staff view, and your staff read the same words from there when they call a customer. Your banker asks one question, confirms the match, and the request moves to your second approver with the check recorded.
Nothing replaces your identity proofing, fraud monitoring or second approver. The approver sees the request was verified before they sign off, and when your policy calls for it, your staff request a Proofie™ from the same screen. We set up the staff view in our console or inside the banking systems your team already uses.
#5308 · $48,500 · New payee
Elena Ruiz (phone)
Ask: What are the words?
Caller check recorded · 9:41 AM
Sam: What are the words?
Elena: Amber Anchor Willow.
Security you can verify
Each box below links to its source or to a review with us, so your security team can test what we say.
Each device generates three codewords per group locally. They rotate every 60 seconds and work offline.
Read the privacy policyA patent-pending live selfie, signed by the customer’s passkey after a Face ID, fingerprint, or passcode check. The signature covers the exact photo plus the time and place; any edit breaks verification.
Visit proofoflife.ioIt works alongside your identity proofing, MFA, fraud monitoring and second approvals.
Book a security reviewBring your security and fraud teams; we answer every question.
Book a security reviewEach group key sits in a secure enclave on the deployment server and on each customer’s phone. Your staff see the words for their own groups, never the key.
Book a security reviewEach customer’s passkey is bound to their phone. Our server stores only the public key, never the private key.
Book a security reviewThe signature includes a recent public block hash, a value no one could know in advance, which shows the photo was taken after that moment. Nothing is written to a blockchain.
Read our privacy policy and terms.
Under your own brand
A generic consumer app asks customers to trust one more company before they can trust you. Your customers get a verification app in your bank’s name instead, published under your own App Store and Google Play accounts. We build, submit, and maintain it.
When you call the bank, three words confirm it’s you. When we call you, ask us for the same three words.
Get startedYou, Your banker, Fraud team, Branch
You, Marco, Lucia, Mateo
Each group has its own three words. The bank only sees words for groups it’s in.
Invite familySwipe for the next screen
Dear Elena,
When you call us, we will now ask one question: “What are the words?” You’ll find them in Merriton ID Verify, our app for your phone.
It works both ways. When anyone from Merriton calls you about your account, a card or a payment, ask us for the words before you act. If the caller can’t give them, hang up and call the number on your card. You can also set up a group with your family for calls between yourselves; we never see those words.
Our identity checks and fraud protections stay in place.
With best wishes,
Sam Okoro
Relationship Banker, Merriton Bank
Scales with the risk
Your verification policy sets the thresholds, and we help you write it. Your staff escalate to a Proofie™ when a threshold or trigger applies.
Set by your verification policy
The three words, on every call your policy treats as routine.
When all apply
Threshold: set by your verification policy
Three words
Set by your verification policy
The three words and a Proofie™, whenever your policy’s triggers apply or anything feels off.
When any applies
Threshold: set by your verification policy
Three words + Proofie™
The return
$12.5B reported lost to fraud by US consumers in 2024, up 25% on the year before $2.95B reported lost to imposter scams, the most commonly reported scam category
Source: Federal Trade Commission, New FTC Data Show a Big Jump in Reported Losses to Fraud to $12.5 Billion in 2024, March 2025.
Questions
Because fraudsters borrow your name, and customers already trust it. An app in your bank’s name, published under your own App Store and Google Play accounts, gives customers one place to check that a call really comes from you. A generic consumer app asks them to trust another company first.
They share three words that rotate every 60 seconds in an app branded as your bank. When the customer calls, the banker asks “What are the words?” and checks the answer before acting. When the bank calls, the customer asks, and your staff read them from the staff view. A voice clone can copy how either one sounds, but not the three words.
No. It adds a check before any change. Callbacks and text codes fail when an attacker has moved the customer’s phone number, and the three words still hold when that happens. Your approvals and fraud controls run as they do today.
Yes. Whoever places the call says the words, and whoever answers checks them. If someone calling from “the bank” can’t give the words, the customer hangs up and calls the number on their card.
Yes. Personal and business customers of any age set up the app in about a minute. The words appear on each request in the staff view, so nobody has to recognize a voice or a face.
Your staff see the current words for the groups your bank is in, never the key. Each group key sits in a secure enclave on the deployment server and on each customer’s phone.
In our staff console, or inside the banking systems your team already uses. We set up the connection during deployment.
The customer who takes it controls it: each Proofie™ can be password protected and deleted at any time. A Proofie™ your staff request is shared with your bank.
Next step
Send this page to your security and fraud teams, then book a review with us before you decide.
Your security team can test how the three words and Proofies™ work, and where your identity proofing, fraud monitoring and approvals fit.
“Before we move any money: what are the words?”
