Umazi's proposed project, "Trust Matrix," aims to innovate and enhance the landscape of Know Your Business (KYB) operations by developing an advanced, business-verified identity system utilising the power of variable credentials. By leveraging integratable source data, blockchain technology, and the potency of decentralised identity, this endeavour targets the intricate issues of fraud, identity theft, and compliance inefficiencies plaguing the current KYB domain. Umazi will explore the potential of applying artificial intelligence to help simplify data processing. The primary focus of the Trust Matrix is to harness a multitude of variable credentials ranging from legal documentation, and financial records, to dynamic transactional data. This extensive data reservoir will form the foundation of the business identity verification system. It will provide a robust, context-aware model that can easily adapt to regional laws, varying business models, and the continuously evolving landscape of commercial fraud. To ensure scalability and trustworthiness, the system will employ blockchain technology. This decentralised network ensures data immutability, and transparency, and provides an unambiguous audit trail - all crucial elements for effective KYB processes. The viability of applying AI will form part of the design thinking to enable analysis of the massive data repository and the intricate correlations between the credentials will be determined. Ultimately, verifiable credential technology will be the cornerstone to generating a 'trust score' by evaluating the various viable sources to form a variable credential and provide clear risk assessments. The success of Trust Matrix would not only streamline KYB procedures but also strengthen the underlying security fabric, thereby reducing financial crimes and enhancing trust among businesses, financial institutions, and regulators. It represents a significant leap forward in combating fraudulent activity, providing reliable and efficient KYB procedures that could revolutionise the business compliance landscape.

Umazi is seeking to provide institutions with a cross-industry digital compliance solution that drastically reduces the complexity of compliance processes and improves efficiency by automating repeatable steps; using blockchain technology. Businesses that transact with each other often conduct due diligence on each other. This due diligence requires the verification of identity and credentials, making sure the organisation is legitimate and low-risk. Traditional due diligence processes are a cumbersome, manual, time-consuming exercise, and vary from organisation to organisation; making the process repetitive and costly. Umazi simplifies the due diligence process by leveraging distributed ledger technology to create a cryptographically secure corporate identity. The distributed ledger facilitates a secure and immutable way for the corporate to control and share their identity. The process becomes automated and streamlined. For financially regulated institutions this means better regulatory compliance, less regulatory, operational and reputational risk and improved KYC (corporate customers) and onboarding experience with customers. Alongside, significant back-office cost-savings. These benefits apply across all industries where it's important to verify the identity of your trading partner, such as large corporate partnerships and manufacturing outsource agreements; Umazi's solution is the same for all of them. The solution provides an exchange for a verified corporate identity, regardless of industry, country or language. Due diligence is a thorough appraisal of a business that a potential investor or buyer will undertake before engaging in a business deal. If you're the party doing the buying or investing, your lawyer will review the target company's assets & liabilities, structure, operations and business relationships. Financially regulated institutions (e.g. banks, insurers, law firms, real-estate, etc.) are required by law to conduct due diligence and risk assessments on clients. Tier-1 banks spend 15% of their costs/year on compliance. These institutions lose ~10% of customers due to onboarding friction. In 2012, the US Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network announced work on a new due diligence rule that would compel collection of ultimate beneficial ownership information. The publication of the Panama Papers in April 2016 accelerated the process, when the millions of leaked documents included in this trove detailed how offshore shell corporations have been used for money laundering, tax evasion and other illegal purposes. One month after they were released to the public, the US Treasury issued its Customer Due Diligence Rule. These events have spurred a global race for enhanced corporate due diligence that is sector-agnostic, cross-jurisdictional and independent of language.