The Bank of Thailand expects around 40 million depositors will register for digital ID authentication under the National Digital ID (NDID) platform after expanding digital customer verification to other financial service providers apart from commercial banks.
The central bank, in collaboration with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Office of the Insurance Commission, Electronic Transactions Development Agency (ETDA) and National Credit Bureau (NCB), announced an expansion of the digital customer authentication service on the NDID platform.
Under the joint collaboration, there are 17 financial institutions including commercial banks, securities companies, asset management firms, insurance companies and non-bank companies involved in the NDID platform.
There are around 10 million depositors registered for digital ID authentication through the blockchain technology-integrated NDID platform, said Siritida Panomwon Na Ayudhya, assistant governor of the payment systems and financial technology group at the central bank.
"In total, there are around 80 million deposit accounts in the banking industry. We expect around 50% to register for digital ID authentication. Some individuals have more than one deposit account," she said.
Given the big database, data collection standards and strong security system, digital customer authentication services have been in place at commercial banks via the electronic know your customer (e-KYC) rules in the first phase.
Eight banks have been testing the e-KYC service on their internal systems in the central bank's regulatory sandbox. Testing has expanded to the second phase under cross-bank service from Feb 6, 2020.
The scope of digital ID authentication has been expanded into other financial services, coming into effect since yesterday.
The services cover opening securities trading accounts, opening investment fund accounts, purchasing insurance policies and requesting credit information from the NCB.
Under the existing NDID system, five banks act as identity providers (IdPs): Kasikornbank, Bangkok Bank, Krungthai Bank, Siam Commercial Bank and TMB-Thanachart Bank.
Other financial institutions and firms involved in the NDID platform can act as relying parties (RPs) in linking data verification with designated IdPs. The central bank allows other financial institutions to participate in the NDID platform as IdPs or RPs.
Customers who want to use the digital ID authentication service need to be one of the five banks' deposit clients and install a mobile banking app.
Customers need to verify themselves through facial recognition either at a bank branch or via a mobile banking app. They also need to register for the NDID service on the mobile banking app.
If customers want to apply for financial services offered by other banks in terms of securities, mutual fund and insurance, they can verify themselves through a facial scan on a mobile banking app as part of the application process.
With the digital ID authentication platform, customers do not need to visit physical branches and submit documents, said Ms Siritida.
She said the central bank will allow specialised financial institutions and other business sectors to join the testing process in the NDID platform under the central bank's regulatory sandbox. These sectors could cover telecom firms and hospitals, among those with big databases, as they should have data collection standard and security systems per the ETDA's requirement.
Government databases and those of regulatory bodies need to be included in the NDID platform to strengthen it.