Fintech: How Digital Banks Are Protecting Customers From Scammers- Ehirim

To address corporate challenges facing digital banking, Nnamdi Ehirim, the Head of Finance and Strategy at Gomoney has said that players in the industry are making concerted efforts to ensure the safety of funds belonging to customers of financial technological service operators (Fintech).

Ehirim said in an interview on Arise TV monitored by THE WHISTLER that the space is gaining so much traction which calls for measures to protect the funds of customers.

Over the past years, the Central Bank of Nigeria has approved over 47 Fintechs to provide different financial services.

Many Nigerians rely on Opay, Palmpay and other digital banks for their banking needs.

Ehirim said, “In the fintech space, it is a digital transaction and as we see in the news, a new player is always coming onboard. Many people are asking to be trusted, and fintech is very different from traditional finance in many ways, specifically to cyber security.

“In traditional finance, you can walk into any institution, you get to know them and they know you. As we see in the industry they do a lot of KYC- you know your customer and the institution you are working with.

“But in digital banking, what we sell and what we take our pride in is making things seamless and removing the layer of physical interaction and KYC and that comes with its own challenges because it means people can mask their real identity and try to act mischievously as well.

“So, as fintech players, what we do is to bring onboard digital way of KYC for customers and bring onboard new ways of protecting customers data as we move it around.”

Ehirim said fintech are introducing protective measures like multi-factor authentication, digitally authentication of documents like drivers’ licence, national ID cards and international passports.

“These are some of the ways that we are looking to make a more robust KYC process. Asides the KYC, we are also there is also protecting customers’ data. Asides the KYC, we are also there is also protecting customers’ data because we deal with a lot of third parties who require this information.

“So, we have to be very secure and careful. There is a new technology we are bringing on board to make the ecosystem to be more robust,” he added.

In terms of fund protection, Ehirim said that digital banks are increasing efforts to educate their customers.

He said, “We verify all our social media platforms so that people know where to go if they want to escalate. A lot of people prefer to escalate on social media. We have in-app customer support channels where people can also escalate issues if they have some.”