The mini-boom in the property market over the summer, fuelled in part by the stamp duty holiday, has come as a very welcome boost. The sector was particularly hard hit by lockdown, and even now the latest official figures show that we are some way off the volumes being achieved in the early part of the year.

Regrettably, we are now seeing a fresh spike in coronavirus cases, and the government has reacted by imposing new restrictions. If these are not enough to ‘flatten the curve’ again, we all need to factor in the possibility of a further lockdown. Until an effective vaccine is readily available, we could all be dealing with different levels of restrictions for some time to come, as the Government seeks to manage the spread of the disease.

Clearly, most estate agents can’t afford just to shut up shop for the duration: they need to keep things ticking over to survive. If completing deals is difficult or impossible with restrictions in place, that makes it all the more important to manage the pipeline business and progress that as much as possible, to be in a position to take maximum advantage at times when restrictions are eased.

The industry has made excellent progress in adopting technological solutions such as desktop valuations and video walk-throughs, and this will undoubtedly help if firms find themselves dealing with another lockdown situation. But continuing to onboard new clients is also vital, and far too many agents are still reliant on face-to-face ‘manual’ processes for this.

For some reason, having a client hand over hard copies of their passport, and documents such as bank statements and utility bills, is often seen as the gold standard for identity verification. Under the sort of full lockdown we saw earlier in the year, this was not possible. The more recent requirement for face-coverings to be worn in branches also clearly presents practical difficulties for this approach. But even if this were not the case, if someone is looking to disguise their identity, it is very easy these days to produce highly sophisticated forgeries that would get past all but the most skilled fraud detectors.

Fortunately, as the techniques employed by fraudsters have become more sophisticated, so too has the technology available to combat this. There is nothing to prevent a full customer onboarding process – including all the necessary Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money-Laundering (AML) checks – being conducted 100% remotely and securely.

The latest technology can combine credit reference data, biometric facial recognition, and digital fraud checks. Triangulating these different sources of information produces a unique ‘composite digital identity’ that is practically impossible to fake. All this can be done online, with no need for in-person meetings, face-coverings or hard copies of documents.

Leaving aside lockdown or any other restrictions, this is clearly much more convenient to clients than requiring them to present their documents in person. Increasingly, the younger generation of first- and second-time buyers expects to be able to do almost everything online or on their mobile, and there’s no reason why this can’t extend to the process around buying and selling a home.

There is still clearly a role for physical valuations and viewings but carrying on using manual processes for customer onboarding and AML checks makes no sense in a digital age, still less with the ongoing threat from covid-19.

John Dobson is the CEO of SmartSearch.