MyMahi school digital ID gives Kiwi students new way to register for bank accounts

For better or worse, society trusts banks. Alongside the airline industry, the banking and financial sector is the business in which we place the most trust, in that we believe they will generally not crash or lose our money. Even when these things do happen, institutional trust is strong enough to carry these industries through the turmoil, demonstrating the value of well-established societal trust.

Society doesn’t yet trust age assurance providers – but some are leveraging the trust people already have in banks to provide effective, privacy-preserving proof of age. ConnectID, the bank verification product developed by Australian Payments Plus, has just announced its integration with Snapchat in Australia, enabling users to swing the age assurance process over to a user’s banking app, without sharing any additional information.

The one hurdle to using this system, which uses data that’s already been verified, is that you need a bank account. For some, this isn’t as simple as it seems: some people, like prisoners or the homeless, find themselves effectively locked out of the banking system. In New Zealand, for instance, it’s estimated that as many as 50,000 people aged 15 or over do not have a registered bank account.

Now, a new initiative is aiming to tackle the issue of the “unbanked” in New Zealand by enabling teenagers as young as 13 to open an Emerge bank account remotely using digital ID, through a school-connected program.

A report from The Post says that Kiwi digital banking firm Emerge will accept the digital identity from school software provider MyMahi, which uses the authoritative data from New Zealand high schools to issue a student digital ID that can also provide proof of age with selective disclosure. Kids 13 and up can use it at school to open an Emerge Basic Access transaction account and get a bank card.

The system, developed by tech entrepreneur Jeff King, has been ready for some time – but, according to King, traditional banks (which withdrew their programs from New Zealand’s classrooms years ago) don’t see the value in courting young customers who are still years away from obtaining a lucrative mortgage.

“We’ve talked to every big bank multiple times, even second tier banks, but there wasn’t any appetite to onboard young people,” King says. “All they’re interested in is reporting to their shareholders their profit in the next 12 months.”

Conversely, a post from Emerge on its LinkedIn account shows marked enthusiasm for the partnership.

“We’ve already helped 250,000+ young Kiwis learn about money through SquareOne App,” it says. This partnership with MyMahi is the next step, turning financial literacy into financial independence. Banking is coming back to classrooms across Aotearoa. Modern, digital, and proudly Kiwi. As it should be.”

The Post also notes the further potential opportunities for partnerships between verification providers and digital banks, specifically naming Revolut as a company to watch.

While it waits to see how Australia handles the rollout of age checks for social media, New Zealand is exploring a number of options for age assurance, which include a partnership between NEC and Hospitality New Zealand to digitize the Kiwi Access Card, a proof of age credential formerly known as the HANZ 18+ card.

Article Topics

banking  |  children  |  digital ID  |  financial services  |  MyMahi  |  New Zealand  |  remote identity proofing  |  student ID