MainMoney palm biometrics platform to support DRC’s financial inclusion drive

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is looking to strengthen its financial inclusion push with MainMoney, a digital payment platform which has been integrated with the country’s national payments infrastructure. Recently, the company launched its palm-based biometrics system in Kinshasa to facilitate digital payments in the Central African country, Bankable Africa reports.

In 2024, Keyo announced that its palm biometrics system was also integrated by local partner AI.Tech to launch MainMoney, with the aim of facilitating secure digital payments in DRC.

Speaking at the launch of the system, the CEO and Founder of AI.Tech, the company that owns MainMoney, Sylvain Mubenga, underscored the importance of the innovation, saying it will enable individuals to easily make payments by using their palm as a wallet. They will not need to hold a bank card or a smartphone, he said.

Mubenga noted that the idea is to strengthen the digital payments landscape in the country and expand financial inclusion because cash-based transactions currently still dominate, despite almost 30 million citizens having a mobile money account.

Meanwhile, MainMoney has been made a part of the DRC Central Bank’s strategy of modernising and strengthening the national financial ecosystem, writes Africa Digital News.

This, according to officials, is to address some of the challenges that have hindered access to financial services in the country in the past, such as high cost and infrastructure inadequacies.

With MainMoney, the government hopes to ensure Congolese have access to easy and secure payments, even in the most remote parts of the vast country. The government is aiming to raise financial inclusion to nearly 70 percent by 2028, according to the country’s 2023-2028 National Financial Inclusion Strategy.

The company wrote on LinkedIn that being integrated with the DRC’s national financial strategy is not only a validation of their services, but also a responsibility they must be sure to meet.

“From the very beginning, our conviction has been simple. Every Congolese person, wherever they may be, deserves access to simple, secure, and reliable financial services,” said MainMoney.

It adds that the three main pillars on which MainMoney has been built are inclusion, which seeks to reach all those left behind by traditional banking systems; modernization which is driving the shift to digital payments; and trust which means ensuring that all payment transactions are traceable and secure.

According to MainMoney, its integration into the DRC’s national financial strategy is not the end of the road, but the beginning of a deep structural transformation of the country’s financial ecosystem.

In an interview with Observers in 2024, Mubenga said the platform seeks to build trust in the country’s digital financial ecosystem. He said because of lack of a national digital ID system t the time, they tapped in Keyo palm biometrics to help with identity verification for MainMoney users.

The financial inclusion push is part and parcel of the DRC’s ongoing digital transformation journey which includes efforts to establish a fully functional digital government through major digital public infrastructure (DPI) undertakings. The government launched DRCPass last year with Singaporean partner Trident.

Article Topics

Al.Tech  |  biometric payments  |  biometrics  |  Democratic Republic of Congo  |  digital payments  |  Keyo  |  MainMoney  |  palm biometrics