18 Jun 2025

Redefining Digital Trust for UK Businesses: Cindy van Niekerk, Founder of Umazi

Cindy van Niekerk, founder of Umazi, is transforming the way UK businesses prove who they are. Through her groundbreaking digital identity platform, she is solving one of the most persistent problems for SMEs: the slow, repetitive, and costly process of verification and onboarding. By simplifying how businesses get trusted by banks, investors, and regulators, Cindy is unlocking new opportunities for growth, innovation, and financial inclusion.

For many UK SMEs, the burden of proving legitimacy has long been a barrier to securing funding and forming partnerships. Traditional compliance checks often span weeks or months, slowing down business operations and stifling agility. Cindy recognised this systemic inefficiency and set out to fix it. Umazi now offers a digital identity platform that allows businesses to verify once and share that trusted identity across multiple institutions, reducing onboarding from months to minutes.

This streamlined approach doesn’t just save time; it empowers SMEs to focus on what really matters: scaling their operations, attracting investment, and entering new markets.

Cindy's leadership extends beyond product development. She recently led Umazi’s major research report revealing that 90% of SMEs find current verification processes to be needlessly repetitive and obstructive. This report has been a wake-up call to banks, regulators, and policy makers, demonstrating the urgent need for scalable, interoperable digital identity solutions.

That call to action is being heard. Cindy’s vision has been echoed by the Centre for Finance, Innovation and Technology (CFIT), supported by the UK Treasury. Her insights are reflected in the CFIT “Digital ID for Businesses” initiative, which advocates for digital company IDs as a critical tool in preventing economic crime and streamlining financial processes.

Internationally, Cindy is advancing digital trust frameworks in the Isle of Man and Bahrain, demonstrating the global relevance of Umazi’s approach. Her work is influencing how financial crime prevention and regulatory compliance are handled across borders, boosting trust and enabling smoother international trade.

Cindy also serves on techUK’s Financial Services Council and its Digital ID workstream, where she is helping align government, regulators, and the private sector behind common digital identity standards. She is a founding member, and board member, of Ayra, a cross-industry initiative focused on building privacy-first, interoperable digital identities that balance security with accessibility.

Innovation remains at the heart of her mission. Cindy recently secured a grant for an AI-powered solution to combat financial crime, further proving Umazi’s role in enhancing UK financial system resilience. Her work integrates emerging technologies like AI, blockchain, and Web3 to build smarter, more secure digital ID infrastructure.

From councils and government departments to global banks, Cindy’s platform is being used to verify businesses, prevent fraud, and reduce risk, laying the groundwork for a safer, more inclusive economy.

By removing friction from compliance and enabling faster access to finance, Cindy van Niekerk is not just helping businesses grow, she’s reshaping the foundations of digital trust and reinforcing the UK’s role as a global leader in secure digital identity.

To read more about the techUK President's Awards, visit our page here. Winners will be announced at the techUK Annual Dinner on 1 July.

Redefining Digital Trust for UK Businesses: Cindy van Niekerk, Founder of Umazi

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