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REGULATED GROWTH · BRAZIL

Lottoland

We couldn't remove KYC. So we removed the unnecessary work around it.

How we changed Lottoland's approach to identity verification in Brazil — moving to a local KYC provider, reducing document-upload friction and taking registration-to-KYC conversion from the 30s to 70%+.

Product strategyKYC & identityRegulated growth
My roleProduct Lead
ScopeKYC strategy · Provider selection · Migration · Onboarding
MarketBrazil
Outcome30s → 70%+Registration-to-KYC completion

01 · The constraint

Brazil changed the rules of onboarding.

Entering Brazil meant rebuilding parts of an onboarding journey that had worked perfectly well elsewhere.

Before we could create an account, players needed to complete a number of regulatory checks. One of the biggest was identity verification.

For the player, that meant taking a live selfie and uploading an identity document such as a driving licence or national ID.

There was nothing fundamentally wrong with that journey. It did the job.

The problem was how many people we were losing along the way.

At the time we were using Jumio. It's a strong global KYC provider, but it was expensive and wasn't as closely aligned to the Brazilian market as some of the local alternatives.

Rather than optimising the existing journey, should we change the infrastructure behind it?

02 · My role

This wasn't just a KYC integration.

I led the product side of the project, from evaluating the new provider and supporting due diligence through to defining the experience and working with the teams responsible for the integration and migration.

Changing provider meant thinking about two groups at the same time.

New players needed a better way through KYC. Existing players couldn't suddenly find themselves locked out because we'd changed the technology underneath them.

And all of it still had to satisfy the regulatory requirements we'd entered the market with.

01

New players

Simplify KYC

02

Existing players

Migrate safely

03

Compliance

Meet regulatory requirements

04

Platform

Integrate a new provider

05

Commercial

Improve provider economics

03 · The opportunity

The document already existed.

One of the capabilities that made Unico particularly interesting was its coverage in Brazil.

During registration we already collected a player's CPF, name and date of birth. Using those details, Unico could determine whether an identity document was already available for that individual.

If it was, we didn't necessarily need to ask them to find their ID, photograph it and upload it again.

We could ask for permission to use the document that already existed.

BeforeManual document journey
  1. 01Live selfie
  2. 02Find identity document
  3. 03Photograph document
  4. 04Upload document
  5. 05Verification
  6. 06Continue
AfterEligible players
  1. 01CPF + Name + DOB
  2. 02Existing document identified
  3. 03Player gives consent
  4. 04Document shared
  5. 05Verification
  6. 06Continue
Same KYC requirement. Much less work for the player.

04 · The migration

The new journey was only half the problem.

We already had existing Brazilian customers verified through Jumio.

Moving provider couldn't mean asking everyone to verify themselves again. That might have made the migration technically easier, but it would have pushed the cost of our infrastructure decision onto the customer.

So the principle was simple: for existing players, changing KYC provider should ideally be invisible.

We built the migration around that principle.

98%of existing players migrated

without interruption to their account access.

05 · The result

Removing friction showed up in the numbers.

30s → 70%+Registration → KYC completion
Representative weekly conversionRegistration start → KYC completion
37%37%37%38%39%37%37%40%
BeforeTypically ~30–40%
69%71%76%78%75%74%78%82%74%71%70%73%
AfterTypically 70%+

Before the changes, registration-to-KYC completion regularly sat in the 30s.

Following the migration and onboarding changes, it moved into the 70%+ range, with some weeks reaching the high 70s and low 80s.

I wouldn't attribute every percentage point to one change. We were improving other parts of onboarding at the same time.

But removing mandatory document upload for eligible players fundamentally changed one of the highest-friction parts of the journey.

06 · What I'd take from it

Regulation creates constraints. It doesn't have to define the experience.

We couldn't decide that KYC wasn't necessary.

We couldn't remove the identity checks.

And we couldn't compromise on the regulatory requirements.

What we could question was how much work the player needed to do to satisfy them.

Some of the best product improvements I've worked on haven't removed a requirement. They've found a better way of meeting it.
Next case study · 02Looking beyond login success to find the real friction→