Biometrics can place Nigerian banks among world’s best

Nigeria’s banks have embarked on a massive biometrics project, registering the fingerprints and facial features of customers in a bid to fight fraud and money laundering. Run by the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Bankers’ Committee, the scheme will see commercial banks record the details of millions of people over the next few months. The data will then be used to help identify customers at ATMs and the point-of-sale, reducing the opportunity for fraud.

The central bank also hopes that biometrics will help to move Nigeria away from a cash-based economy to a credit-based one by making it easier for lenders to identify borrowers.

Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and the Bankers’ Committee declared that Nigerian banks have the potential to become the best in the world, according to Leadership – Nigeria’s most influential newspaper.

They said the launch of the bank verification number (biometrics) by the two bodies was aimed at transforming the country’s banking industry into the most efficient in the world. At the launch of the sector’s biometric solution in Lagos, Sanusi said leveraging on the numerous opportunities presented with the biometrics, the industry would be able to complete many landmark projects.

According to him, innovative companies could now think in a “limitless manner that is opened by this combination of the biometrics, the Internet availability, the agent banking. In the next few years you would have an industry that is the most efficient in the world simply by leveraging on its potential”.

Sanusi, who hinted of a contract with NIGCOMSAT for Internet services in all the local governments in the country, said very soon all villages, remote or not, would have financial access points, which would be connected to the Internet.

He explained that the apex bank would bear the cost of the project for the first three to four years. “There will be dedicated lines to all financial access points, every ATM and POS in every village will be connected and we will also provide dedicated access points to every primary and secondary schools in the hotspot,” he said.

Sanusi also stated that the biometrics, apart from enhancing “Know Your Customer (KYC)” for better lending and fraud control in the sector, would help banks cut cost and create easier access to their customers.

“If you’ve got all these databases, why do you need to have a bank office? And then all branches, all these structures you have are collapsed. It doesn’t matter if you walk into First Bank and you are a GTB customer; once you’ve got your finger, you can transact your business. And because it’s a shared bank office, you are sharing the cost, and then you spend your time on the things you are supposed to be doing – getting the customers, servicing them, following up on them; and somebody else does all the office work, processing the cheques, disbursing the money and making the entries.”