The Executive Director, Operations and Information, Fidelity Bank Plc, Gbolahan Joshua, has advised data validation agencies and organizations to adopt appropriate policies that provide financial institutions with the required flexibility to utilize available customer data.
Joshua said this during a panel session at the 10th-anniversary celebration of Verve in Lagos recently.
He explained that this would assist banks in the country to drive new levels of customer engagements across digital channels and systems.
Joshua harped on the need for data-generating institutions in Nigeria to explore fresh ways to collaborate with one another.
Alluding to the importance of data validation as a major driver in enhancing the Know Your Customer policy, Joshua noted that harmonization of disparate databases would accelerate lending processes by banks.
“Digital identity is very critical in digital banking operations. Industry collaboration must be embraced by both financial institutions and database generating institutions to simplify digital banking operations” he said.
While stating that the bank was not aversed to data sharing, Joshua said that the lender had signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Open Technology Foundation for the adoption of a standard Application Programming Interface for its operations as a financial institution.
Open banking is a system that provides a user with a network of financial institutions’ data through the use of application programming interfaces. The Open Banking Nigeria Standard defines how financial data and services should be created, shared and accessed.
By relying on networks instead of centralization, open banking helps customers to securely share their financial data with other financial institutions.
The Chief Executive Officer, Verve International, Mike Ogbalu, said endless possibilities awaited the digital space in banking.
