Bank of the Philippine Islands is using the Philippine Identification System to let National ID holders open an account in its mobile app without photographing a physical identity document. Applicants enter their name and date of birth, then complete a live selfie that is matched against the facial record held by PhilSys.
The workflow uses the National ID Authentication Services operated by the Philippine Statistics Authority. It is designed to confirm that the applicant is the person associated with the identity record while reducing the document-capture steps that can cause glare, blur and manual review during remote onboarding.
BPI says account openings increased by about 50 percent after the feature was introduced. The bank also says approximately 85 percent of its account openings now use the National ID, making the government credential its primary identity record for onboarding.
The process moves the comparison from a customer-supplied image of a card to an authoritative government record and adds a live facial check. Liveness controls and procedures for failed or ambiguous matches remain part of the bank’s fraud-prevention and accessibility workflow.
The Philippine government has been broadening the same service beyond BPI. Other institutions using National ID authentication include Asia United Bank, GoTyme Bank, Philippine National Bank and GCash, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority.
The authentication service forms part of a wider effort to make PhilSys usable in everyday digital transactions. The government has opened National ID authentication to public and private relying parties and expanded mobile access to the Digital National ID through eGovPH.
As of June 30, the system had issued verifiable credentials for nearly 93 million PhilSys Numbers, while close to 92 million people could access a Digital National ID through eGovPH. The authority reported roughly 145 million successful authentications by July 28, up from 124 million at the end of June.
The totals count authentication events rather than unique people. Banks can embed the government-backed check directly into their apps and apply the same workflow across large numbers of applicants.
BPI’s workflow removes the document-photography step, matches applicants against PhilSys and uses the National ID for most new accounts opened through the bank.
Sources: Rappler, Philippine Statistics Authority
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By Ji-seo Kim
