Thailand’s national ID verification platform CEO sees bright future as service needs grow

The Chief Executive Officer of NDID, a private Thai digital ID services company which enables identity verification for different purposes including banking operations, says there are brighter days ahead for the firm’s business as more Thais are subscribing to the NDID platform for their ID verification needs.

Speaking to the Bangkok Post, Boonsun Prasitsumrit says with over four million personal accounts already registered, about 30 million other customers have also been sending their facial recognition data to banks and other financial institutions from the chips embedded in their ID cards to enable smooth sign-on to the NDID platform for ID verification purposes.

According to the CEO, such information collected by banks with consent of the user, is intended to expedite the process of accurate data collection and processing.

NDID said in March that it had concluded a Phase 1 process for the verification of natural persons and was looking forward to the verification of legal persons, and even foreign entities within the framework of a cross-border digital ID verification plan through a partnership with Mastercard.

Since its introduction in 2018 through public and private sector cooperation, NDID has gone through various stages and processes to test its services and expand its reach. From individuals opening personal deposit account at commercial banks, the platform can now be used for ID verification needs such as opening new accounts at securities companies, asset management and insurance firms and well as for providers of credit cards and digital loans, the Bangkok Post outlines. The platform can also be used for digital ID authentication.

NDID’s CEO adds that the firm outperformed expectations for the number of persons registered on the platform in its early days of operations, largely thanks to the COVID pandemic which drove digital banking transactions and the government’s cash dispensing schemes which required beneficiaries to open bank accounts.

While NDID has carried out a pilot on the expansion of its services to both public and private companies, the CEO says the next phase of their ID verification development will target the corporate sector. He also cites a number of Thai government agencies with which the NDID is partnering to further the adoption of the platform for government transactions.

Boonsun also tells the Bangkok Post the NDID platform provides digital signatures and e-consent services, which makes it possible, for instance, to significantly shorten the time a company requires to get a document approval from a board.

Reiterating the importance of the cross-border digital ID verification plan, Boonsun mentions that it will facilitate ID verification for international use cases. The pilot for this will begin in the Asia-Pacific region, he hints.

Article Topics

authentication  |  biometrics  |  digital ID  |  digital ID cards  |  facial recognition  |  financial services  |  identity verification  |  KYC  |  National Digital ID (NDID)  |  selfie biometrics  |  Thailand