Absa goes live with fingerprint verification system
Absa.jpg” alt=”" width=”300″ height=”300″ />As the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) partners with the South African Banking Risk Identification Centre (SABRIC), Absa has announced the introduction of the online fingerprint verification system at its branches.
Absa has become the first bank to go live with the DHA interface. This service will enable Absa to verify and authenticate client identity, thus limiting identity fraud. In terms of the initiative, the DHA will allow banks access to the Home Affairs National Identification System (HANIS) to enable the biometric identification of current and prospective clients.
The bank says it will be participating in this industry-wide initiative that allows the banks in South Africa to conduct online fingerprint verification of its clients as one of many possible checks before engaging a consumer.
The South African Banking Risk Identification Centre (Sabric) and the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) entered into a co-operation agreement in 2007 to jointly address bank-related identity fraud and officially launched yesterday.
The bank says the system will help in ensuring their clients against identity fraud.
“Being a customer-centric organisation, Absa will embraces any endeavour that seeks to protect our clients against crimes such as fraud and identity theft,” says Alfred Ramosedi, Absa’s managing executive for Face-to-Face Channels.
He adds that during the pilot at seven Absa branches - seven fraudulent cases whereby applicants tried to utilise the identities of deceased persons to open accounts, were detected.
In addition to fraud prevention, the HANIS pilot also indicates many other positive trends.
“From an Absa perspective, this initiative is part of a bigger programme to increase efficiencies in our account opening process, thus making it easier for customers’ to conduct business with the bank. Through this program we also aim to reduce paper consumption as all customer documentation will be electronically stored,” explains Ramosedi.
“This is significant, especially as environmental considerations become increasingly critical to our business processes and practices. Ultimately, the overall customer experience will be improved,” Ramosedi concludes