SecureID, Sterling Bank partners for Financial Inclusion

SecureID , a digital solution provider and Sterling Bank Plc have entered into new partnership to provide a new Biometric Identification Card as a means of driving financial inclusion in Nigeria.

With approximately 46.3 per cent of the Nigeria population currently unbanked, this new initiative is billed to deliver financial services at an affordable cost to the disadvantaged and low-income segments of the society, according to   the partners.

Richard Oshungboye, head of Financial Inclusion at Sterling Bank Plc, said that the biometric card which is designed to hold the bio data, fingerprints and account information of the card holder, would be used by customers with access to formal financial services, such as deposit, cash withdrawal, paying of bills, recharge card, fund transfer etc.

“SecureID provides solutions aid performance and efficiency in service delivery. I attest to the fact that the successful implementation of our Financial Inclusion Project as confirmed by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) which is the biometric enabled and first of its kind in the country. It has been made possible by SecureID being the only company that could produce the much needed biometric cards,” Oshungboye said.

Ola Salami, SecureID Innovation and Product Development Specialist, noted that SecureID is delighted to partner with Sterling Bank to bring this initiative to the unbanked population, in support of CBN’s vision to reduce unbanked rate from 46.3 per cent to 20 per cent by 2020.

 To conduct a transaction with the biometric card, the customer inserts the card into the POS terminal and places his or her finger on the fingerprint sensor on the POS terminal. The terminal then validates fingerprint supplied by the customer against the one stored on the card.