Vietnam e-payments unicorn collecting standards and certifications for biometric KYC 

VNPay, a Vietnamese electronic payments startup, has received confirmation of the effectiveness of the liveness detection technology that accompanies its biometrics-powered eKYC product from iBeta and been certified for conformity with ISO/IEC standard 27001, which covers information security management systems, according to VietnamNet.

The Hanoi-based firm’s eKYC offering was subject to testing for compliance by iBeta Quality Assurance for presentation attack detection (PAD) standard ISO/IEC 30107-3, to determine its ability to tell real people in selfies used for biometric face verification from printed and on-screen images.

“Forms of fraud when using electronic identification have become increasingly unpredictable and sophisticated, such as forgery with images, videos, masks, or tools simulating human faces,” says a VNPay representative quoted by VietnamNet. “Therefore, VNPay always emphasizes applying the most advanced techniques to identify customers.”

VNPay has been accruing standards and certifications in a bid to prove that Vietnamese businesses can contend with international tech behemoths in the fields of biometrics, AI and secure digital identity and e-commerce. In addition to passing the iBeta ISO/IEC compliance test for PAD, the firm has membership in the FIDO Alliance and is recognized by the British Standards Institute (BSI Vietnam).

The firm credits its good standing to comprehensive R&D on AI technologies for the banking and fintech sectors, including using advanced liveness detection and optical character recognition (OCR) to identify and authenticate biometric data, signatures, optical characters and real-time gesture status.

VNPay is a subsidiary of VNLife Corporation Joint Stock Company, a holding company in Vietnam whose website says it is dedicated to “the mission of developing an integrated digital ecosystem to meet people’s daily needs,” through technology such as AI and blockchain, and to develop “a diversified ecosystem operating in four core areas: banking enablement, digital payment, online travel and new retail.” Formally known as Viet Nam Payment Solution Joint Stock Company, VNPay is financed by GIC, an investment firm that is one of three entities which jointly manage the foreign reserves of the government of Singapore.

For a brief moment in 2021, following a flurry of additional funding, the cashless payments firm claimed a valuation over $1 billion – only the second Vietnamese startup to do so. However, its net profit fell by 94 percent in 2022.

Like many nations facing a deluge of sophisticated new technology, Vietnam has implemented policies aimed at harnessing AI, including the National Strategy on AI Research, Development, and Application of Artificial Intelligence until the year 2030.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  digital payments  |  face biometrics  |  iBeta  |  KYC  |  standards  |  Vietnam  |  VNPay