Inadequate address verification systems

[mouakter13]

Another important component of KYC is address verification, because businesses need to know where their customers live to help confirm their identities. However, most of Africa lacks proper addressing systems, so many buildings and streets are unnamed, which means many people don’t have formal physical addresses and there’s no to-the-door postal service.

In the West, it’s common for customers to verify their address through a recent utility bill or bank statement. But this does not work in a country like Nigeria where 43% do not have access to grid electricity and 55% do not have access to bank accounts. To address this issue, businesses have to send agents to physically visit a customer’s home – but this can take weeks and cost up to $5 per address. This is the problem we’re trying to solve at OkHi, a smart addressing system which enables businesses to verify cambodia whatsapp number data where their customer lives through their smartphone.



We need to work together to solve Africa’s KYC challenges
Fortunately, there’s a considerable upside to these challenges: The lack of formal KYC infrastructure in Africa today creates an opportunity for leapfrog solutions that can be even better than what currently exists in the West. M-Pesa, the mobile money service that launched in Kenya in 2007, proved this by unlocking financial inclusion for 75% of the population within 10 years of launching.

I believe that widespread adoption of identity verification solutions like Smile Identity, combined with OkHi’s address verification solution, will help Africa leapfrog to a new global best practice for KYC. But the enormity of the KYC problem in Africa requires us to collaborate and solve this together, including businesses and regulators who need to be bold to adopt new technologies. And the time to act is now, because there has never been a better time to solve the KYC problem in Africa and leapfrog the West than today.