Multinational retailer and supermarket chain Tesco has started to consider the sale of its banking arm, Tesco Bank , including a potential joint venture. Tesco is reviewing the Tesco Bank, as an early stage that may not lead to a formal scale.

According to the press release, the supermarket chain is also looking to bring in Goldman Sachs to advise the team on the future of its banking branch, which counts at the moment millions of customers. The changes in Tesco’s businesses have no suggestion of a plan that might result in job losses and any kind of wind-downs. Furthermore, there is also a possibility that a partial sale or joint venture might also be considered in the future.

Tesco Bank’s services and solutions Tesco Bank was founded in 1997 and it focuses on providing its customers with multiple financial products and services while focusing on sustainability, diversity, and inclusion. The financial institution announced in March of 2022 its partnership with Onfido, an identity verification, and authentication provider. The collaboration focused on the safety and protection of clients, as Onfido provided a secure application process to the new Tesco Clubcard Pay+ clients, following the launch of the new product in January 2022.

Tesco Clubcard Pay+ allowed its members to pay while using their Clubcard and pick up extra Tesco Clubcard points with every purchase they made. Clients had the possibility to add money and ringfence their grocery spend from any UK bank or financial institution account into their Tesco Clubcard Pay+ account while using the free Tesco Bank mobile banking application. The Clubcard Pay+ also enabled them to save while shopping by rounding up their purchases to the nearest pound, saving the difference into a Round Up account.

By partnering with Onfido, Tesco Bank offered online users an improved process of customer application by using digital identity verification to streamline the operation. Customers had the capability to apply directly through the Tesco Bank mobile banking application, after taking a photo of their ID and a selfie. Onfido was set to check that the ID was genuine and then matched it with the user’s face.

This ensured that the individual presenting the identity is the true owner of the ID and that it is present psychically. This proved the identity of the user from anywhere and anytime with a quick process to open an account. The SDK product of Onfino integrated glare and blur detection into the design of Tesco Bank’s mobile application, which offers real-time feedback to help customers submit high-quality pictures for document verification services.

There were also additional features added to the service, such as the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Autofill, as well as a solution that extracts data from the ID to prefill the application form to streamline the account opening process further. .