CardinalStone is one of Nigeria’s leading investment firms, with subsidiaries spanning asset management, securities trading, pension services, and consumer finance. They serve a diverse customer base—from high-net-worth individuals to everyday investors—which means their KYC process touches thousands of users across multiple business units.

As their operations scaled, their existing identity verification approach could no longer keep up. Each subsidiary often repeated KYC checks for customers already verified elsewhere, incurring unnecessary costs, while manual processes led to delays and errors. They needed a unified system that could efficiently verify identities across all units.

After partnering with Dojah, CardinalStone cut verification errors by 70% and eliminated duplicate KYC costs by automating key verification steps. This case study explains how they transformed their onboarding workflow and built a faster and seamless KYC process using Dojah’s suite of KYC solutions.

The Challenge: Duplicate KYC Checks and Manual Reviews

For CardinalStone's operations and compliance teams, identity verification and onboarding had become a challenge. With multiple subsidiaries and a growing number of clients, what should have been a seamless KYC process was creating inefficiencies across the company.

Duplicate Verifications Driving Up Costs

One major pain point was duplicate checks across subsidiaries. A customer who'd already been verified by CardinalStone Securities would have to go through the entire process again when opening a pension account because the previous KYC provider didn’t support shared histories or logs. This led to repeated KYC checks for the same client, incurring dual costs and straining resources across the company.

Manual KYC Reviews Taking Up Entire Days

Another challenge was the tedious manual review of KYC documents. Some IDs required human review because automated processes were missing; as a result, the compliance team often spent entire days reviewing forms and supporting files. Kolawole Agboola, the IT Ops lead, explained that this left little time to focus on higher-risk cases or other critical tasks. 

“Our biggest pain point was duplicate verifications. We’d pay to verify the same customer multiple times across different subsidiaries. We were also spending days on manual reviews, which affected our overall efficiency. That was what pushed us to find a better alternative.”
— Kolawole Agboola, IT Operations Lead, CardinalStone

These challenges combined to slow client onboarding, reduce team productivity, and escalate compliance costs. It became clear that CardinalStone needed a unified system that could connect all subsidiaries, eliminate repeated checks, and automate manual tasks.

The Solution: Automating KYC Checks Across All Subsidiaries

During their research for a better KYC solution, CardinalStone discovered Dojah. They needed a provider that could automate manual validation and, more importantly, share verification data across all subsidiaries so a customer verified once wouldn’t need to be verified again. Dojah’s EasyOnboard offered exactly that—a single verification engine capable of serving multiple business units from one central workflow.

CardinalStone started with Dojah's BVN validation; this let them instantly verify identities against Nigeria's Bank Verification Number database, and they added OCR for document verification.

 Instead of manually extracting data from driver's licenses and national IDs, the system could now read and validate that information automatically. They also implemented face-matching to confirm that the person submitting documents was the same person on the ID.

Beyond the automation features, EasyOnboard introduced shared verification logs, allowing every subsidiary to access a user’s verified identity history without repeating checks. This was a major shift from their previous provider.

As they began integration, CardinalStone discovered additional benefits that supported the process. Samson Adejoro, the lead backend developer, noted that integrating EasyOnboard was seamless. The clear documentation and step-by-step guides made setup straightforward.

Additionally, Dojah provided responsive support, resolving technical issues promptly, making the overall verification process faster and far less stressful for the team.

The Results: 70% Error Reduction and Duplicate Checks Eliminated

Now using Dojah’s EasyOnboard, CardinalStone saw a clear transformation in their KYC process. Manual document reviews that once took days are now automated and completed in hours.

Samson Adejoro, Lead Backend Developer, noted, “We used to validate KYC documents manually, which took a long time. With Dojah, much of that process is now automated, saving our compliance team up to six hours daily.”

Another significant improvement was a 70% reduction in verification errors, resulting in fewer false positives and less back-and-forth for manual reviews. Because Dojah’s verification logs were shared across all subsidiaries, CardinalStone no longer paid multiple times for the same client, making the process more reliable and reducing operational costs.

These improvements extended across the group. Onboarding new users became quicker and less complex for clients and staff alike. With routine manual checks reduced, the compliance team could focus on higher-risk cases. At the same time, finance and operations redirected resources previously tied up in duplicate KYC verifications toward more strategic initiatives.

A 4-Star Recommendation from CardinalStone for Dojah

Today, CardinalStone rates their overall experience with Dojah 4 out of 5. When asked what stood out, they point to three things: the accuracy improvements, the time their team got back, and Dojah's support responsiveness throughout.

For organisations looking to automate onboarding and improve verification accuracy, CardinalStone strongly recommends Dojah’s EasyOnboard. They highlight its ease of use and seamless integration into existing workflows.

Kolawole Agboola, IT Operations Lead at CardinalStone, sums it up simply:

As CardinalStone expands, EasyOnboard remains a core part of their infrastructure for maintaining compliance and scaling verification across the group.

Simplify Your KYC Process in Africa with Dojah

Like CardinalStone, many financial institutions and businesses across Africa struggle with manual verification and onboarding delays. Whether you're looking to automate your workflow, reduce KYC errors, or onboard users faster, Dojah’s EasyOnboard gives you the tools to manage identity verification end-to-end.

Dojah is already trusted by over 500 businesses across Africa, with more than 50 million identities verified. Whether you're operating in one market or ten, EasyOnboard helps you stay compliant while keeping onboarding frictionless.

If your organisation wants to unify verification across teams and remove the inefficiencies of manual checks, EasyOnboard is built for you.

Ready to transform your KYC process across Africa with EasyOnboard? 

Book a demo today and start verifying identities instantly.