When I opened my Ing account I didn't need any of this. They verify your identity through a series of questions about your past, as well as your SSN. In fact, all US banks allow accounts to be opened over the 'net now. I've personally done it with several of them.
Yeah, they pull a credit report in real-time and then will do something like show you three cities and ask you to pick one you lived at in the past (with a "none of these" choice also). It's a good idea but I'd think often hackable for targets who are heavy social media users and basically have their life story online and public.
Still pretty good for now, though.
Edit: anyone know what the cost is per query for these services? I assume it's not free, thus likely not feasible for services that don't stand a good chance of providing enough revenue to offset the cost.
That does require a credit pull to accomplish. Not insurmountable (and can be done without damaging the consumers credit score via a so-called "soft pull") but the company doing the pulling has to pay for access to that data.
