NBU Permits to Open Bank Account with Digital Passport

The NBU has eased the procedure of remote identification and verification of the bank customers having digital passports in the mobile application Diia.

From now on, when opening a bank account remotely, citizens should not submit physically the identity card or biometric passport if they have a digital identity card or passport in the mobile app Diiia.

Each Ukrainian having biometric document - identity card and passport, can use this method. The only thing required is to install app Diia on a smartphone and verify him/herself in order to obtain digital version of identity card or passport by the means of the NBU BankID System.

What is a digital passport?

Digital passport is a digital analogue of documents in hard copy in the mobile app Diia. It contains the information of an identity card or biometric passport of a citizen of Ukraine in electronic form. A digital passport is more safe than a usual hard copy and it’s not less safe than its plastic analogue. It allows to get reliable user data from official state registers. 

How does a new method of customer identification and verification take place?

A bank will be able to use the method upon connecting to the Ministry of Digital Transformation systems.

In general the process looks like this:

• a bank proposes to a potential customer to identify him/herself in Diia through the NBU BankID system
• upon successful identification a customer gets digital documents in the app according to the data contained in state registers  
• a bank receives customer data through secure channels and takes additional photographic evidence by person identity recognition method 
• after that, a customer may use the bank services.

Besides, a customer in a similar way may provide a copy of his/her digital identity card or passport at the bank office.

It will reduce time for customer servicing because there is no need to make passport copies as it happens now.

What are the advantages of a new method?

 In fact, actually it’s the only opportunity for financial institutions to verify remotely the person’s identification data contained in state registers. 

Advantages of the method:

• simple use
• reliability for banks – the identification data are received from a reliable source
• process digitalization and speeding up the bank customer servicing.

When will the banks start proposing this method to their customers?

The Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine plans to launch this mechanism after completion of its functional testing. Meanwhile the banks need to connect to the Ministry’s systems and set up operational processes. 

This mechanism of identification and verification is described in detail in the Resolution of the NBU Board No. 138 On Approval of Amendments to the Regulation on Conducting Financial Monitoring by Banks dated 2 October 2020 that takes effect on 3 October 2020.