NationalMirror CBN, German firm sign biometric ID project pact by TOLA AKINMUTIMI on Nov 6, 2013 | Posted under: Highlights, News The Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, yesterday signed a Banking Industry Biometric Solutions Project agreement with Demalorg BMS, a German company. The agreement was in furtherance of the regulatory bank’s drive to achieve more reliable, technologydriven, fraud-free banking services delivery. By the terms of the agreement, the first phase of the project would connect the Central Data point to at least one branch of each bank, the CBN and the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System, NIBSS, within 90 days after which the second phase, which will ensure full capture of biometric details of all bank customers nationwide, will commence and be completed within 12 months. The objective of the project, which is to cost about $50 million, is to provide a centralised platform through which banks may enrol and uniquely verify the identity of each customer for ‘know your customer,’ KYC purposes, perform credit checks, verify customer’s integrity and authenticate customers from a point of transaction device. Speaking on the project and efforts targeted at curbing the increasing incidents of compromise on conventional security systems in the industry, the CBN Governor, Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, said the project represented a major landmark in the Bankers Committee’s efforts aimed at promoting financial inclusion drive, expansion of banking services, access to credit and more importantly, dealing with KYC, money laundering and other problems that the industry is still contending with. Sanusi explained that the CBN and the DMBs decided to embark on the project as a proactive strategy of enhancing the integrity of banking services delivery by building a reliable customer identification system which, he said, would help in complementing the other projects embarked on by various government agencies, including the National Identity Card project, to build a single identification database for all Nigerians. The CBN governor, who said the scope of the project went beyond the banking sector customers and had implications for those in micro finance banks, pension funds, insurance companies, stock market investors and dealers, among others, pointed out that when operational, the project would help to create a credible national image for Nigeria globally, deal with money laundering and other frauds and help the banks to extend credit to people without worrying about where to find them and who they are
Posted on: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 07:52:57 +0000
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