Papersoft and Integrated Biometrics selected to address financial inclusion in Nigeria

The Nigerian Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) has selected Papersoft and Integrated Biometrics as technology partners under the country’s Financial Inclusion Strategy, with the aim of bringing 70 million unbanked people into Nigeria’s financial system by 2020.

Financial inclusion efforts in Nigeria to date have resulted in biometric data collection for the enrollment of 34 million people for Bank Verification Numbers (BVNs), and NIBSS and the country’s central bank are now planning to scale the program. The challenge with doing so, according to the announcement, is in reaching the excluded population, much of which lives in relatively underdeveloped rural areas.

Papersoft and Integrated Biometrics will provide fast and compliant biometric data capturing, to connect secure identity to financial services access, even in remote locations. The Kojak PL and Five-0 biometric scanners from Integrated Biometrics are the only 10-finger enrollment and verification devices certified and authorized by NIBSS which are truly mobile, the companies say.

Nigeria’s National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) Director-General Aliyu Aziz in July urged the IT sector of Africa’s most populous country to improve its support for digital identity as a means of improving social inclusion and service delivery.

Integrated Biometrics has recently announced partnerships related to mobile and remote service delivery in Africa, including for HIV testing in South Africa and remote healthcare in Kenya.

Article Topics

Africa  |  banking  |  biometrics  |  data collection  |  digital identity  |  financial inclusion  |  Integrated Biometrics