With the emerging digital economy changing the way people consume products and services, we have seen a giant leap from traditional, in-person interactions. Where people had to physically visit a bank or store to conduct a transaction or make a purchase, nowadays we can access products and services online. This has made it very simple for individuals to shop and transact on a digital platform.
While the digital economy has eased access to products in developed countries, it has left behind those unbanked rural communities with inadequate access to financial services. Due to a lack of infrastructure and connectivity, underrepresented communities all across the globe have been excluded from participating in the digital world.
We recently participated in Village Capital’s Financial Solution for Migrants program, which has been designed to support innovation across Africa, the Middle East and South Asia increasing migrant access to financial services and employment opportunities. The program brought together pioneering startups from across the region who have been building revolutionary financial solutions for migrants.
Our participation in the program brought us an opportunity to learn and interact with experts who are playing a key role in promoting financial inclusion in the region. Along with this, we collaborated with partners and mentors who have been spearheading digital and financial growth across MEA and South Asia.
Why is financial inclusion a challenge for migrants?
Migrants all across the world face a similar challenge while accessing financial products and services. Some of these include:
- Lack of documentation: Migrants moving to a new country often lack the necessary ID documents to verify their identity. This makes it difficult to open bank accounts or even obtain a SIM card.
- Insufficient financial knowledge: Many migrants are unfamiliar with financial concepts that, along with language barriers, prove to be hurdles while accessing financial products. This also makes them vulnerable to fraud and financial scams.
- Smaller earnings: Due to smaller earnings that are often undocumented, migrants face challenges while opening bank accounts and accessing credit cards or loans.
How is uqudo contributing to financial inclusion?
uqudo’s digital identity platform is playing a key role in enhancing financial inclusion by providing access to financial products and services across the region. Implementing digital identity platforms is crucial for banks, financial institutions, fintechs, telcos and government entities, to facilitate financial inclusion. Achieving a fast, secure, and regulatory-compliant customer onboarding process that enables unbanked individuals to participate in the economy is a critical step in this direction.
Traditionally, customer onboarding has been a cumbersome process, involving multiple steps and the need for physical documents. This has led to a high drop-off rate and a negative customer experience.
Our digital identity layer solves these challenges by automating customer onboarding and providing a seamless customer experience. Using a proprietary AI-based solution, our identity platform simplifies user onboarding and reduces friction. This results in quicker onboarding times, reducing the risk of fraud, false positives and identity theft for our customers.
Our ability to verify identities not only in the countries customers operate in but also in those they are planning to expand to shortly makes us the de-facto option for digital identity. We have global coverage of passports and can verify more identities in the MEA region than any other competitor via NFC or civilian registries. We also have an extensive biometrics toolkit, enabling the highest levels of accuracy for the MEA region, and can use alternative biometrics where formal identity cards are not available.
uqudo’s digital identity platform enables individuals with and without identity cards to access financial, telco, insurance and government services. In regions where identity cards and databases are available, our platform captures and verifies identity data obtained from NFC chips and government databases. Individual identity is then verified using market-leading facial recognition and liveness detection technologies. In regions without formal identity documents, alternative biometrics are used to create online identity profiles and connect people to a formal system.
We have successfully built an orchestration layer for customer onboarding catering to the needs of companies across MEA. Our fully digital platform has been designed with security in mind, using encryption technology to protect customer data while ensuring regulatory compliance. It also enables firms to streamline onboarding, reduce drop-off rates and decrease customer acquisition costs. Our comprehensive checks also include Sanctions, PEPs, and Adverse Media Screening, to ensure that individuals and businesses are protracted from fraudulent activities.
Being an identity company in the EMEA region, our solutions are perfectly aligned with the digital identity requirements of the region. Our identity platform is playing a major role to bring in financial inclusion to unbanked communities in the region while building an inclusive, trustworthy and sustainable internet for all.
Our immense success can be measured by our vast customer base across MEA, and partnerships with global leaders like VISA, SmartAfrica, Microsoft, PwC, Accenture, and more. Along with this, our unique ability to solve identity challenges and promote financial inclusion makes us a key player in the global identity landscape.
