The Making Online Banking Initiation Legal and Easy (MOBILE) Act officially became law on May 24, 2018, authorizing a national standard for banks to scan and retain information from driver's licenses and identity cards as part of a customer online onboarding process, via smartphone or website. This bill, which was proposed in 2017 with bipartisan support, allows financial institutions to fully deploy mobile technology that can make digital account openings across all states seamless and cost efficient. The Act also stipulates that the digital image would then be destroyed after account opening, to further ensure customer data security, and as additional security measures, section 213 of the MOBILE Act mandates an update to the system to confirm matches of names to social security numbers.

'The additional security this process could add for online account origination was a key selling point with the Equifax data breach fresh on everyone's minds,' Scott Sargent, of counsel in the law firm Baker Donelson's financial service practice, recently commented on AmericanBanker.com. Read the full article here.

Though digital banking and an online onboarding process has already been within best practice for financial institutions in recent years, the MOBILE Act officially overrules any potential state legislation that, up to this point, has not recognized digital images of identity documents as valid.

The MOBILE Act states:

'When an individual initiates a request through an online service to open an account with a financial institution or obtain a financial product or service from a financial institution, the financial institution may record personal information from a scan of the driver's license or personal identification card of the individual, or make a copy or receive an image of the driver's license or personal identification card of the individual, and store or retain such information in any electronic format for the purposes described in paragraph (2).'

Why adopt online banking?

The recently passed MOBILE Act is a boon for both financial institutions and end users. The legislation:

  • Enables and encourages financial institutions to meet their digital transformation goals
  • Makes the process safe with digital ID verification capabilities and other security measures
  • Reduces time, manual Know Your Customer (KYC) duties and costs to financial institutions for onboarding new customers
  • Provides the convenient, on-demand experience that customers want and expect

The facts:

61% of people use their mobile phone to carry out banking activity1

77% of Americans have smartphones2

50 million consumers who are unbanked or underbanked use smartphones3

The MOBILE Act does not require any regulatory implementation. Banks can access this real-time electronic process directly or through vendors.

Read all you need to know about the MOBILE Act here.

Find out more about our digital ID verification solutions.

References:

  1. MEF Mobile Money Report; Mobile Ecosystem Forum. February 5, 2018. (https://mobileecosystemforum.com/mobile-money-report/)
  2. Mobile Fact Sheet; Pew Research Center. January 30, 2017. (http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile/)
  3. Consumers and Mobile Financial Services 2015; The Federal Reserve System. March 2015. (https://www.federalreserve.gov/econresdata/consumers-and-mobile-financia...)

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Mitek Systems Inc. published this content on 11 June 2018 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 11 June 2018 22:02:05 UTC