Overcoming the Know Your Customer hurdle: Innovative solutions for the mobile money sector

Thursday 31 Jan 2019 | Building the financial ecosystem | English | Global | Mobile Money | Mobile Money Programme - filter | Policy and regulation | Report | Resource | Sub-Saharan Africa |

Overcoming the Know Your Customer hurdle: Innovative solutions for the mobile money sector image

Like all financial institutions, mobile money providers have a responsibility to identify their customers and understand the risks these customers may pose before providing services.

In this paper, we examine innovative approaches to conducting customer identification, verification, and due diligence (collectively referred to as “Know Your Customer” or KYC). These innovations can make it easier and more affordable for mobile money providers to attain new customers, especially those who are low income or rural dwelling, while ensuring compliance with regulatory requirements.

We focus on two recent trends:

  • Simplifying onboarding for restricted accounts; and
  • Using digital IDs to enable electronic KYC (e-KYC). While both practices are still relatively new, they have already proven to be beneficial.
Read the accompanying blog