We have to do the passport verification since we're providing you with a prepaid wallet, which can be used to store funds and make purchases in India.
Companies like Wise power Remittances i.e. you can send money to a person in India from USA using their facilities.
However, this cannot be used to make purchases from merchants. Nor are you guaranteed your money will be delivered within 2 minutes in case of cross-border remittance.
Because Cheq actually opens a new Indian wallet, we must do the passport verification. Regulations are pretty specific in this regard currently.
Rest assured though, when you try to open your Cheq wallet today, your details will only ever be seen by White collared staff on direct Payroll of Transcorp. The agent only takes a photo of your passport for our records (no paper copies of your details are stored).
We'll keep trying to improve the onboarding experience in the coming years for sure.
You cannot use them to make everyday purchases. And there's no guarantee by when the recipient will receive money.
Edit: to be more helpful, a system like this would be more exciting for me - Upload the passport in app, the passport is verified only by a salaried and background-checked (you know, like a police clearance certificate) staff that is a employee of your company (not a third party or contractor). Have a clearly written policy about record keeping, security of the storage, pursue legal charges against employees who don't adhere to privacy policy. Etc.