MENA Fintech Association launches the fifth volume of SHIFT, a Guide to Payments Series; focusing on “KYC – Know Your Customer” across MENA

MENA Fintech Association launches the fifth volume of SHIFT, a Guide to Payments Series; focusing 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 massive importance of eKYC to business efficiency, risk management, and customer acquisition.

The key takeaways from this report are:

• Since 2012, 23.1% of all RegTech investments, which amounts to $878m, can be attributed to investments in KYC solutions.
• Digital KYC has delivered on the speed and cost efficiency promise, reducing manual time and the cost of processing and verifying new bank customers.
• A core benefit to organizations is the reduction of fraud. While the core eKYC process is done at the start of an engagement, digital banks constantly check and verify user identities through OTPs, biometrics and more.
• The report further emphasizes 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 hard or costly-to-reach areas using offline processes.
• As more and more institutions adopt digital capabilities such as eKYC, the benefits to the unbanked multiply, allowing banks to extend their services to those that truly need them in a way that still protects the Bank itself.

Commenting on the report, Nadia Benaissa, Co-Chair of Payments Working Group comments, “This report looks at how key members of the MENA Fintech industry look at the different models and processes when it comes to KYC onboarding and how advanced the Middle East has become. It provides interesting scenarios of many Middle Eastern countries and it is interesting to see the sharp move towards Digital KYC onboarding with a direct correlation with national digital-first programs.

Nameer Khan, Chairman of MENA Fintech Association states, “This report, which was intended as the last chapter of the series for 2022, Guide to Payments, has profited from the insights of many regional and international experts. The report is a product of the joint efforts of the community by bringing together the industry, global experts and benchmarking the best practices and learnings to have a unified approach towards the subject. As the MENA FINTECH ASSOCIATION grows bigger, we are always pleased to work closely with the regional authorities and regulators.”