Is this the beginning of the end for clients having to provide a passport and utility bill whenever they want to consult a lawyer, put a property on the market, or open a bank account?

More and more local institutions who are either licensed by the FSA on the island or are designated businesses for anti-money laundering purposes are moving towards digital methods of verifying a potential client’s identity.

Sending a pic of your passport photo page plus a selfie is one way; other methods include sending a video of yourself with a randomly generated unique phrase.

Whilst financial institutions who are licensed by the FSA have to get their approval to introduce a new digital identity service, those businesses which are merely designated, including lawyers, estate agents and accountants, are not obliged to.

Under Isle of Man FSA regulations the onus is on those entities themselves to ensure that they have taken reasonable steps to verify and identify their client.

Now, Quinn Legal have launched a revolutionary ‘digital onboarding system’ which uses facial recognition technology to perform the same function.The legal firm hope that it will cut waiting times from several weeks down to just 20 minutes.

State-of-the-art biometric facial recognition technology allows clients to verify their identity at any time, without having to arrange an in-person meeting. It also enables clients to supply information electronically without having to print out and fill in lengthy forms.

Head of legal services at Quinn Legal, James Quinn, said: ‘The project to bring digital onboarding to our clients has been two years in the making. I am confident that Quinn Legal now has the most sophisticated software of its kind. We’ve always been forward thinking and launching digital onboarding alongside our app is our latest achievement in our mission to revolutionise the legal sector.

‘I am so excited to finally be able to offer this service to our clients and my hope is that it will now significantly speed up the conveyancing process.’

To celebrate the launch, Quinn Legal are offering a discount to all new conveyancing clients who use the app and sign up before December 31, 2022.