The Director General of National Identity Management Commission
(NIMC), Chris Onyemenam, has said that the credibility and reputation of
Mastercard informed its choice as the company to facilitate the payment
function in the yet to be issued national identity card.
Onyemenam, who disclosed this in an exclusive interview with LEADERSHIP, said that it was a big plus for the project to be supported by Mastercard given the company’s international reputation.
He said, “One of the most important functions is the payment function, which, for now, is supported by Mastercard. And for Mastercard to accept to collaborate with us speaks volumes. It means that we have the right ideas and vision. It’s our responsibility to ensure that the right qualifications or criteria that would qualify our cards to be accepted worldwide.”
MasterCard Worldwide is a multinational financial services corporation based in the United States. Its principal business is to process payments between the banks of merchants and the card issuing banks or credit unions of the purchasers who use the “MasterCard” brand debit and credit cards to make purchases. It is a leading global payments solutions company that provides a family of well-known, widely-accepted payment card brands including MasterCard®, Maestro® and Cirrus® and serves consumers, financial institutions, and businesses in over 210 countries and territories worldwide.
On whether the partnership with Mastercard will compromise the integrity of the national identity management scheme, the NIMC boss said that Mastercard can only have access to the payment function details of the card and not the biometric and demographic data of Nigerians.
He said, “I repeat that the demographic and biometric data reside with us and Mastercard has no access to them. The demographic data on the face of the card used for the purpose of activation of the card reside only with the issuer processor, which is a Nigerian company. The name of the issuer processor is Unified Payment Systems Limited, which is owned by I think, all the banks.”
Onyemenam, who disclosed this in an exclusive interview with LEADERSHIP, said that it was a big plus for the project to be supported by Mastercard given the company’s international reputation.
He said, “One of the most important functions is the payment function, which, for now, is supported by Mastercard. And for Mastercard to accept to collaborate with us speaks volumes. It means that we have the right ideas and vision. It’s our responsibility to ensure that the right qualifications or criteria that would qualify our cards to be accepted worldwide.”
MasterCard Worldwide is a multinational financial services corporation based in the United States. Its principal business is to process payments between the banks of merchants and the card issuing banks or credit unions of the purchasers who use the “MasterCard” brand debit and credit cards to make purchases. It is a leading global payments solutions company that provides a family of well-known, widely-accepted payment card brands including MasterCard®, Maestro® and Cirrus® and serves consumers, financial institutions, and businesses in over 210 countries and territories worldwide.
On whether the partnership with Mastercard will compromise the integrity of the national identity management scheme, the NIMC boss said that Mastercard can only have access to the payment function details of the card and not the biometric and demographic data of Nigerians.
He said, “I repeat that the demographic and biometric data reside with us and Mastercard has no access to them. The demographic data on the face of the card used for the purpose of activation of the card reside only with the issuer processor, which is a Nigerian company. The name of the issuer processor is Unified Payment Systems Limited, which is owned by I think, all the banks.”
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