“Our goal is to help design a new banking model, using our biometric authentication technology to bring the unbanked into the financial services system. Additionally, over time, improve their circumstances, making it possible to open a bank account, apply for credit, and achieve a level of financial stability.” – Lori Cohen, CMO, Veridium

Veridium has been awarded a $150,000 grant for research into how mobile biometrics can be used to extend economic inclusivity in emerging countries.

The award comes by way of Digital Financial Services Lab (or “DFS”), a FinTech accelerator organization focused on emerging markets; and with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. DFS previously awarded Veridium a grant in September of last year for work exploring how biometric authentication can be performed with a standard Android smartphone camera, and this latest grant is aimed at further supporting Veridium’s work in this area.

Dubbed “4 Fingers Export”, Veridium’s solution revolves around fingerprint recognition, but with an unconventional approach. The aim is to facilitate biometric authentication even on Android devices that don’t have embedded fingerprint readers, and to that end Veridium’s solution is designed to capture four fingerprints simultaneously using a smartphone’s camera. Those fingerprints can then be matched against government databases, which would allow the system to be used for KYC purposes in areas where access to physical bank branches is limited.

Veridium has already taken this camera-based fingerprint scanning approach to Europe’s financial services sector, proving its viability; now, as Veridium CMO Lori Cohen explained in a statement, the company aims to use its latest DFS grant “to help design a new banking model, using our biometric authentication technology to bring the unbanked into the financial services system.” Cohen added that over time this technology could help the previously unbanked “to open a bank account, apply for credit, and achieve a level of financial stability.”

(Originally posted on FindBiometrics)