Data sharing’ll drive safety of KYC on digital transaction channels—Fidelity Bank
Fidelity Bank Plc has called for digital synergy in customer data management so as to assist banks in the country to drive new levels of customer engagements across digital channels and systems.
Speaking as a panelist at the recent 10th anniversary celebration of Verve in Lagos, the Executive Director, Operations and Information at the bank, Gbolahan Joshua, called on data validation agencies and organisations to adopt appropriate policies that provide financial institutions with the required flexibility to utilise available customer data.
While advising Nigerian data generating institutions to explore fresh ways to collaborate with one another, he alluded to the importance of data validation as a major driver in enhancing the Know Your Customer (KYC) policy.
According to him, effective harmonisation of disparate databases would accelerate lending processes by banks as “Digital identity is very critical in digital banking operations. Industry collaboration must be embraced by both financial institutions and database generating institutions to simplify digital banking operations.”
However, he was quick to note that Fidelity Bank was salutary to data sharing; Joshua said that the bank had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Open Technology Foundation for the adoption of a standard Application Programming Interface for its operations as a financial institution.
He explained open banking as a system that provides a user with a network of financial institutions’ data through the use of application programming interfaces, saying “The Open Banking Nigeria Standard defines how financial data and services should be created, shared and accessed.”
“By relying on networks instead of centralisation, open banking helps customers to securely share their financial data with other financial institutions,” Joshua averred.
