You’ll likely already be aware of Contego’s recent acquisition of Working Status Ltd.

The acquisition will contribute to Contego’s vision of providing a single global platform to verify and risk-score people, companies and ID documents, within multiple countries, for onboarding, monitoring and investigation processes. The two organisations are a great fit, from product capability, vision and culture perspectives.

But who are Working Status? And why is this really good news for you?

Here at Contego our focus has traditionally been providing regulatory solutions surrounding property and financial transactions, however with the recent changes in immigration legislation, we identified the need to support our clients further.

You may be aware that as an employer, you are legally required to verify that all your potential and existing employees are eligible to work in the UK via ‘Right to Work’ checks.

Failure to comply with immigration regulation can lead to hefty fines of up to £20,000 per employee and a potential 5-year prison sentence.

Working Status provides a Right-to-Work solution supported by an industry-leading immigration consultancy. It’s widely adopted technology improves and optimises Right-to-Work compliance for the employee onboarding process.

So, having Working Status as part of Contego means we will now be able to offer additional capabilities to enhance your employee onboarding processes whilst helping to ensure that you remain 100% compliant with the latest ‘Right to Work’ regulatory changes.

By acquiring Working Status Ltd we will not only be able to continue to perform checks on ID documents in real-time through our API (Application Programming Interface), but we can now also offer our clients the option of using a Gold Standard Desktop Scanner. The Desktop Scanner can deliver an effective and immediate decision on an ID document’s legitimacy by performing ultraviolet and infrared scans, ensuring our clients can be confident in making data-driven decisions in an instant about who they employ.

Clients also have the added option of checking the authenticity of an ID document by using our Mobile App, allowing us to offer our services to a broader client base, across more sectors and more countries.

Equally, what does this acquisition mean for Working Status’ clients?

For those clients already using Working Status’ services, you don’t have to worry. We have added all of their services to our own portfolio, as well as expanding upon what was already offered.

On top of the identity verification checks for ‘Right to Work’ and ‘Right to Study’ we can now offer Working Status clients a broader range of capabilities to identify other ‘risk factors’ to their business. Whether they are need of AML, KYC, or ‘Right to Work’ compliance support, we can help.

This acquisition, therefore, represents a perfect opportunity as we come together as one organisation, to deliver a much stronger and a greater value to all our clients.

As regulation enforcement continues to rise, along with the increase in size of fines imposed, the financial and reputational damage risks for organisations found to be non-compliant can be considerable and hard to bounce back from. Organisations across industries need to know exactly who they are dealing with to comply with the latest industry and government regulations.

If you are interested in learning more about Contego’s acquisition of Working Status Ltd and the reasons behind it, watch Contego’s CEO, Adrian Black explain more.

If reducing risk is important in your business and you’d like to be ready to tackle increasing fraud threats and keep regulators at bay, then get in touch with us today by calling +44 (0) 1235 375 000 or visit the Contego website to find out more and book an online demo.