Banking institutions work towards a single financial identity number

Banking institutions are currently working on developing a platform to connect the information contained in the databases of the National Electoral Institute (INE) , the National Tax Administration Service ( SAT ), and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ( SRE ) to prevent identity theft and similar crimes.

Sources within this sector have confirmed to EL UNIVERSAL that the goal is to create a single and unique financial identity number per client, which is expected to launch before the end of 2018.

“For us, it's vital to prevent identity theft,” said the president of Mexico's Banking Association (ABM), Marcos Martínez, “It's one of the most expensive projects for the country but if achieved, it's importance will be unprecedented.”

According to our sources, the project has made a huge progress and it's all a matter of defining who will be in charge of its operation and the required investment amount – which will be afforded by the banking institutions.

Simultaneously, the biometric security systems each banking institution is investing on – mainly fingerprint sensors – will reinforce user identification and provide additional information to the existent databases.

On August 30, the-then Minister of Finance, José Antonio Meade , stated before Moody's analysts that this user identification project for the financial system would lay the groundwork for a digital economy in Mexico .

Mexico is one of the G20 member countries falling behind in this matter, as it was debated for years who would be in charge of managing this unique identity number: the Federal Government or autonomous authorities.

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