The
Central Bank of Nigeria and the Bankers Committee on Tuesday sealed a
biometric solution pact with a German Firm, Dermalog, for the
development of a payment system that would be driven by fingerprints.
The move, according to the Governor, CBN, Mr. Lamido Sanusi, will help to revolutionise the country’s payment system.
For instance, unlike the current
practice where different instruments are used as means of
identification, bank customers will from 2014 be identified through
their fingerprints.
Sanusi, while speaking at the signing of
the agreement, which was held at the central bank’s headquarters in
Abuja, noted that the system would become operational on February 14,
2014.
The move followed the recommendation of a
sub-committee chaired by the Group Managing Director, Zenith Bank Plc,
Mr. Godwin Emefiele.
The committee, made up of the Group
Managing Directors of Access Bank Plc, First Bank of Nigeria Limited,
United Bank for Africa Plc, Union Bank of Nigeria Plc and Skye Bank Plc,
had shortlisted Dermalog as the company to develop a database for the
banking sector.
Emefiele said, “The company that was
awarded the contract has been given a very ambitious deadline, and
before the contract was awarded, it agreed that it would deliver in 90
days.
“The first phase of the project will
connect the central data to the banks as well as the central bank and
the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System. We believe that the company
will do so, and by February 14, 2014, we are all very optimistic and
looking forward for a gift from the banking industry.
“The cost of the project is above $50m
and the banks, in their wisdom and in line with their collaborative
efforts, are going to be sharing the cost of the project, and no
customer is going to be charged for this project.”
Explaining the reason for the project,
Sanusi said it would help to provide a single biometric database that
would serve the purpose of authentication as well as address the issues
of money laundering, fraud, credit extension and financial inclusion.
He said, “The vision is that this will
go beyond the banks and it is a very tight deadline that I have set for
the committee and the committee has discussed with Dermalog; and in
three months, we can officially say that every single Nigerian bank is
connected to the system; and hopefully in the coming months, we will
expect every customer of every branch of every bank in Nigeria to have
complied to this, but it goes beyond the banking system.
“We have about a thousand microfinance
banks; we have customers of pension fund administrators; we have
customers of insurance companies; we have people who deal with the stock
market, and the vision for this is that everyone that deals with the
financial system should have his biometric data captured, and this will
be used for identification, verification and authentication.”
No comments:
Post a Comment