Social Lending Service "Berry Partners" Introduces Online Identity Verification Service "LIQUID eKYC"

ELEMENTS Group's Liquid Inc. (Headquarters: Chuo-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director: Keiki Hasegawa) will provide its online identity verification service "LIQUID eKYC" to "Berry Partners," a social lending service offered by Berry Partners Inc. (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo; Representative Director: Yoshikazu Nakamura). This will allow identity verification checks, which traditionally took about 2-3 days by mail, to be completed as early as the same day. Furthermore, by verifying identity through the reading of the IC chip in identity documents and comparison with a selfie, the service will prevent fraudulent registrations such as impersonation, thereby enhancing security.

◾️Summary

- "Berry Partners" is a social lending service that allows individuals to invest and build assets from small amounts. - Liquid will provide its online identity verification service "LIQUID eKYC" during the member registration process for "Berry Partners." - Identity verification, traditionally done by mail, can now be completed online, significantly reducing processing time. - The adoption of "LIQUID eKYC" was driven by its proven track record as the No. 1 eKYC service in Japan by market share.

◾️Background

"Berry Partners" is a social lending service that allows individuals to invest and build assets from small amounts. Liquid will now provide its online identity verification service "LIQUID eKYC" to "Berry Partners." With the introduction of "LIQUID eKYC," identity verification during member registration, which previously took about 2-3 days by mail, can be completed online, with checks finalized as early as the same day. Additionally, by verifying identity through the reading of the IC chip in identity documents and comparison with a selfie, the service will prevent fraudulent registrations such as impersonation, thereby enhancing security.

The decision for this implementation was based on the proven track record of "LIQUID eKYC" as the No. 1 service in the online identity verification market share for 7 consecutive years*1.

*1 ITR "ITR Market View: Identity and Access Management / Personal Authentication Security Market 2026" eKYC Market: Sales Value Share by Vendor (FY2019-FY2025 Forecast)

◾️About Berry Partners Inc.

Berry Partners Inc. creates next-generation financial experiences centered on social lending.

By directly connecting investors and those seeking funds, it builds a funding circulation model with unprecedented transparency and reliability.

It offers individuals accessible asset management options and provides businesses with speedy fundraising opportunities, expanding the possibilities of finance. Through a sound and sustainable platform, it challenges itself to realize a more open financial market.

Location: Akasaka 6-9-17, Minato-ku, Tokyo

Representative: Representative Director Yoshikazu Nakamura

Established: May 2015

Business Activities: Type II Financial Instruments Business

Website: https://berrypartners.co.jp/cust

◾️About "LIQUID eKYC," No. 1 in eKYC Market Share for 7 Consecutive Years*1

"LIQUID eKYC" is a service that completes identity verification online for online contracts and account openings. Utilizing proprietary AI, biometric authentication, and OCR technology, it provides a smooth user experience with minimal drop-off. It supports various methods, including capturing identity documents such as My Number cards and driver's licenses, reading IC chips, and public personal authentication (JPKI). In recent years, with the spread of generative AI, fraud and impersonation methods have become more sophisticated and cunning, increasing the need for eKYC that enhances the certainty of identity verification not only by capturing the document surface but also by reading the IC chip. The use cases for eKYC are rapidly expanding, including identity verification during passkey registration, which is a phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication, and identity verification during account recovery. The ELEMENTS Group has a cumulative total of 150 million identity verifications and over 700 companies have adopted the service.

Web: https://liquidinc.asia/liquid-ekyc/

About Public Personal Authentication: https://liquidinc.asia/jpki/

*1 ITR "ITR Market View: Identity and Access Management / Personal Authentication Security Market 2026" eKYC Market: Sales Value Share by Vendor (FY2019-FY2025 Forecast)

◾️About Liquid Inc.

Liquid aims to realize a seamless society where approximately 8 billion people worldwide can easily and safely use all services in their natural state by making authentication invisible through the use of biometric authentication. Furthermore, in line with the trend of online identity verification for financial transactions (Act on Prevention of Criminal Proceeds Transfer), mobile phone contracts (Act on Prevention of Illicit Use of Mobile Phones), used goods purchases (Secondhand Articles Dealer Act), real estate transactions, and CtoC transactions, Liquid provides a system for cross-industry and cross-provider fraud detection, pursuing both convenience and security.

Location: 5F, Nihonbashi Life Science Building 3, 3-8-3 Nihonbashi Honcho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo

Representative: Representative Director Keiki Hasegawa

Established: December 2018

Business Activities: Image analysis and big data analysis specializing in biometric information and behavior (LIQUID eKYC, LIQUID Auth, etc.)

Website: https://liquidinc.asia

Service Sites:

Identity Verification Service "LIQUID eKYC" https://liquidinc.asia/liquid-ekyc/

Possession Authentication Service "LIQUID Auth Passkey" https://liquidinc.asia/liquid-auth-passkey/

Cloud-based Facial Recognition Service "LIQUID Auth Face" https://liquidinc.asia/liquid-auth/

Digital ID Wallet "PASS" https://liquidinc.asia/smartcity/

Digital ID Wallet for Foreigners "GPASS" https://liquidinc.asia/gpass/

◾️About ELEMENTS Inc.

Location: 5F, Nihonbashi Life Science Building 3, 3-8-3 Nihonbashi Honcho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo

Representative: Representative Director and President Keiki Hasegawa

Securities Code: TSE Growth Market 5246

Established: December 2013

Business Activities: Personal authentication solutions utilizing biometric authentication, image analysis, and machine learning technology; personal optimization solutions for food, clothing, and housing; development and provision of cloud services for managing personal information.

Website: https://elementsinc.jp/

*Company names and product/service names mentioned in this press release are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective companies.