Should all Micro-Credit Banks Use Fingerprint Biometrics Banking Technology?
Perhaps foreshadowing a future shift for micro-credit banks across the globe to start using biometrics for customer identification, we distributed a News Release today announcing that ASMAB, a micro-credit bank in the country of Benin, has started to use fingerprint biometric banking technology for customer identification. The genesis for ASMAB’s decision to start using fingerprint biometrics was the widespread fraud and corruption that plagued their business, specifically customers falsifying their identities. These problems were undermining customer confidence in their process so ASMAB (with help from HPC Informatique, a technology solutions provider) decided to incorporate fingerprint biometrics to identify customers, eliminating fraud and corruption in their system and helping to secure consumer confidence.
Headquartered in the Western African capital city of Cotonou, Benin, ASMAB is modeled after the micro-credit Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, pioneered by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus to lend money to the poor facilitating socio-economic development, encouraging savings, and fighting loan shark corruption. Expectations are high that biometrics will help to increase security and decrease fraud in the system restoring customer confidence and building trust. We will be sure to report back at a later date with an update on how the deployment is going and if it is meeting ASMAB’s expectations.
Micro-credit banks have sprouted up all over the globe to help provide low income citizens the chance to borrow money on safe and secure terms. Can we expect to see others follow suit and adopt biometric identification for their customers? You can be sure that after news breaks of ASMAB’s efforts, other micro-credit banks may begin to explore this technology too.
