Bank Pocztowy deploys digital ID, expands biometric payment cards rollout

Bank Pocztowy has signed an agreement with digitalization company Usługi Cyfrowe (a subsidiary of Poland’s national postal service Poczta Polska), under which the country’s digital ID (mojeID) will be implemented to perform remote confirmation of customer identity in both commercial and public services.

By implementing the digital ID into its Pocztowy24 online banking system, the financial institution will enable the remote execution of several procedures that previously required in-person data confirmation.

“This solution allows for fully remote confirmation of identity based on data from a trusted source, entities we refer to as identity providers,” says Robert Malicki, president of the management board of Usługi Cyfrowe.

These, in Poland, are primarily banks that have verified information about the user and comprehensively protect the data in their individual banking systems.

mojeID was developed by the banking sector infrastructure company Krajowa Izba Rozliczeniowa, an entity responsible for the smooth operation of interbank settlements and reliable electronic information exchange in the country.

The digital ID is compliant with the European Regulation on electronic IDentification, Authentication and trust Services (eIDAS), and had signed up 800,000 users for FIDO2 authentication to sign in for government services as of nearly a year ago.

Biometric payment cards for individual customers introduced

In December last year, Bank Pocztowy started issuing biometric cards for companies as part of a collaboration with Fiserv Polska S.A., Mastercard and Thales with Fingerprint Cards’ technology.

Now, the company is announcing it is extending the issuance of biometric cards to individual customers, starting with 950 fingerprint-recognition-enabled cards.

Just like the original biometric cards issued by Bank Pocztowy last year, they will enable authentication of most transactions via fingerprints, while some activities (e.g. cash withdrawals from ATMs) will still require a PIN code.

Commenting on the news, the bank’s management board said the provision of a biometric card to individual customers is in line with the development strategy of digital solutions of Bank Pocztowy, which aims to increase the security of non-cash transactions in Poland.

“I hope that providing individual customers with biometric cards will further popularize non-cash transactions in Poland,” says Bank Pocztowy’s director Sylwia Kosidło. “We are the first bank on the domestic market to introduce this innovative solution for individual clients and, at the same time, one of the few in Europe.”

Poland is often at the forefront of technology deployment as far as biometrics technologies are concerned. For instance, earlier this year, the country added HID Global’s fingerprint biometric readers into its national digital ID infrastructure.

Article Topics

biometric cards  |  biometrics  |  consumer adoption  |  digital ID  |  financial services  |  Poland