Nigerian Stock Exchange looks to mandate biometrics

The Nigerian Stock Exchange is looking to mandate that all investors submit biometrics before buying or selling shares.

Reported in the Nation, these new rules outline that fingerprints and iris images will be required for identification, and that stockbrokers will now be required to collect data from their clients. Stockbrokers that don’t collect biometrics will be suspended from trading.

There are many emerging and active biometric objectives in Nigeria today.

Most recently, the Nigerian police introduced biometric registration for vehicles in an attempt to fight terrorism, kidnapping and car theft in the country. Specifically, this system will be based on fingerprint data.

Also, the government of Nigeria will soon mandate biometric registration SIM card sales. 

In addition, the Central Bank of Nigeria says it’s set to introduce biometric authentication for point-of-sale and ATM transactions by 2015. 

The Nigerian National Identity Management Commission and MasterCard recently announced the introduction of 13 million MasterCard-branded National Identity Smart Cards, which include electronic payment capabilities, as well as unique National Identification Numbers based on biometrics.

As reported previously in BiometricUpdate.com, in 2012, the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) of Nigeria announced its proposal to capture the biometrics of every Nigerian and issue national identity numbers within a period of only 30 months. In January of this year, the National Population Commission announced it had started a comprehensive biometric capture exercise.

Later in 2012, Chairman of the National Population Commission, Festus Odimegwu said other government agencies (such as the NIMC) which had been collecting biometric data will pool that information with the NPC. The chairman also controversially suggested that any Nigerian who is not captured in this most recent demographic survey will not be recognized as a citizen of Nigeria after the 2016 national population census.

Article Topics

fingerprint  |  identification  |  investment  |  iris  |  Nigeria