Experts offer alternative customer onboarding solutions outside BVN

As the ban on the use of Biometric Verification Number (BVN) for validation placed on non-bank organisations persists, experts have offered other approaches considered equally effective in customer onboarding.

The first step is to digitalise the entire customer onboarding process, according to the experts who attended the Digital Identity Matters 3.0 webinar organised by VerifyMe Nigeria, a digital identity verification and Know-Your-Customer (eKYC) technology company, and Tech Cabal Media.

Dayo Ademola, managing director, Branch International, said customers value speed the most. Hence, fintech companies should be ready to deliver a seamless infrastructure that can onboard customers in minutes while ensuring that they do not have to leave the digital experience during the process.

Branch International had to build an algorithm-enabled credit scoring system to access applicants’ creditworthiness and dispatch loans within minutes to suitable candidates.

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“This eliminated extended gaps in requesting for guarantors details or bank statements and the likes, as we observed that majority of customers did not return after they dropped off because of these requirements,” Ademola said.

Esigie Aguele, co-founder and chief executive officer, VerifyMe Nigeria, said an efficient onboarding process should include a KYC infrastructure that allows the organisation to focus on its core business while ensuring seamless onboarding should be seen as an opportunity to grow and scale.

From interacting with fintech customers, VerifyMe found that the address verification component of KYC is usually regarded as a chore. Aguele suggested that fintech companies need to start seeing onboarding as the first opportunity to unlocking growth by getting as much data about a customer from many sources.

“We have many customers that use anything from our traditional address verification service, of which we are fastest, to our technologies for geo-tagging that enable us to provide quick address verification,” Aguele said. “Our last mile verification service is backed by over 11,000 field agents, and we presently deliver it to over 20 banks in Nigeria’s major cities in under 24 hours.”

Babs Ogundeyi, founder and chief executive officer, Kuda Bank, sees onboarding as a continuous iteration because there are always criminals trying to circumvent the process.

“Innovative technology such as liveness checks, support the onboarding process by ensuring that the person holding the device, which we can assume is the account opener, is the same image captured in the system because they have to take and upload a selfie in real-time. So a customer cannot use someone else’s picture,” Ogundeyi said.

Ogundeyi said Kuda Bank has come a long in creating smooth KYC and onboarding processes for our customers.

“From our experience, many things have to be in place for a seamless experience such as reliable broadband connectivity, affordable mobile devices, enabling regulation, technology, and trained personnel, among others,” Ogundeyi said.