Ever had to fill a form when trying to open a bank account? Even though these banks ask you to provide your home address you’d be surprised that they don’t bother to verify whether or not you’re from the location you claim to live.
It’s the reason why VerifyMe, an identity verification startup in Nigeria, is seeking to change that with a solution called ‘VeriFind’.
A report by This Day Live says VeriFind is a proprietary geo-tagging solution targeted at improving address verification for seamless customer onboarding. It is backed by a group of 13,000 agents across Nigeria. It can also function as “Anti-Money Laundering Compliant”.
Esigie Aguele, the company’s CEO, in a statement said a lot of organisations see the address verification component of KYC as a routine. According to him, “The 24 to 48 hour wait period for traditional processing is simply unsuitable to the demands of today’s fast-paced businesses.”
Aguele spoke about other products apart from VeriFind. The company also revealed a Nigerian Uniform Bank Account Number (NUBAN) verification service and a Facial Liveness Tool.
With the Facial Liveness Tool, VerifyMe will draw on the databases hosted in the nation, such as the NIN (National Identification Number) and driver’s license to authenticate the identities of Nigerians.
The NUBAN verification service will also allow for the verification of financial transactions by cross-referencing different sets of data like the account names, phone numbers, and genders of people.
Verifying the Identity of Nigerians is a big issue that the country is facing, especially in business. People go through stress trying to obtain official documents such as NIN or Driver’s license. As such they get to source for these particular documents only when they have need of them.
In 2012, registration for the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) started and since then only about 54 million Nigerians have been reportedly registered. This is really a long way off from the current population of about 200 million people in Nigeria. Since the Nigerian government is a bit incapable of capturing the identities of many Nigerians, startups like VerifyMe are launching solutions trying to bridge the gap.
VerifyMe can be trusted to provide you with a National Identity Number, NIN. According to the company’s website, they are currently Nigeria’s preferred ID Verification Tech Company licenced by NIMC for NIN Enrolment.
Here are the steps to getting your NIN with VerifyMe
1. Download and fill a pre-enrolment form.
2. Go to any of our enrolment centres with your pre-enrolment form and a valid form of identification to get your pre-enrolment slip.
3. Present your pre-enrolment slip to get your biometric data (live photo and fingerprints) captured.
4. Receive your NIN Slip!
