MENA Fintech Association Launches Fifth Volume of SHIFT, A Guide to Payment Series; focusing on “KYC

by James · December 12, 2022

MENA Fintech Association Launches Fifth Volume of SHIFT, A Guide to Payment Series; with a focus on “KYC – Know Your Customer” across MENA.

This 5-report series on payments is a product of the Payments Working Group of the MENA FinTech Association called “SHIFT”, of which Codebase Technologies is a member. This volume, Know Your Customer (KYC), focuses on the enormous importance of eKYC for business efficiency, risk management and customer acquisition.

The most important extracts from this report are:

Since 2012, 23.1% of all RegTech investments, amounting to $878 million, can be attributed to investments in KYC solutions.
Digital KYC has fulfilled the promise of speed and cost-effectiveness, reduced manual time and the costs of processing and verifying new bank customers.
A core benefit for organizations is the reduction of fraud. While the core of the eKYC process is done at the start of an engagement, digital banks continuously check and verify user identities through OTP, biometrics and more.
The report further highlights the fact that with a fully automated, safe and secure customer onboarding and eKYC process, banks and FinTechs have the capabilities to reach customers in typically difficult or costly areas to reach using offline processes.
As more and more institutions adopt digital features like eKYC, the benefits for the unbanked increase, allowing banks to extend their services to those who really need them in a way that still protects the bank itself.

Commenting on the report, Nadia Benaissa, co-chair of the Payments Work Group, comments “This report looks at how key members of the MENA Fintech industry view the different models and processes when it comes to KYC onboarding and how advanced the Middle East has become. It presents interesting scenarios for many countries in the Middle East and it is interesting to see the sharpen the move towards Digital KYC onboarding with a direct correlation to national digital-first programmes.

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Nameer Khan, chairman of the MENA Fintech Association explains“This report, which was intended as the final chapter in the 2022 Guide to Payments series, has benefited from the insights of many regional and international experts. The report is a product of the community’s joint efforts by bringing together industry, global experts and benchmarking of best practices and learnings to have a unified approach to the subject. As the MENA FINTECH ASSOCIATION grows larger, we are always happy to work closely with regional authorities and regulators.”