This is a big thing. Mastercard is a global company. In Nigeria, a country that has nothing to loose and some small advantages to gain this may seem like a no brainer. However, if this new tech proves itself reliable enough I expect it to be pushed to many more countries.
Think about it. A BANK will OWN your biometric data (10 fingerprints, iris signature, facial signature). Everything. And this is not a governmental entity. Nigeria, as a poor country, cannot challenge the tech brough by Mastercard.
An then what would be the next step? No more cash payments? If you pay by cash the whole system would flag you as potential threat?
Plus, is there any prove that access to credit for really poor people is actually creating wealth ? This is the modern slavery and anyone who has credit in west either for education or commercial purpose has felt on its own skin what means to work for paying up the debt.
Nigeria, as a poor country, cannot challenge the tech brough by Mastercard.
That's a ridiculous statement. Yes, the country has been mismanaged by corrupt, inept leaders for a half-century. But despite their best attempts it's currently the largest economy in Africa and ranked 20th by the World Bank in gross national income (not per capita) for 2013.
Why is that? Nigeria seems to be quite successful by African standards. They even make good movies. Of course not without problems, but they seem to have both spare money and some political will - a very rare thing to have in Africa.
Don't confuse consumer credit – which is taking out loans in order to buy goods like toasters that will decrease in value – from a business loan – which is a bet that you can add value to what you buy with the loan, and thus earn enough to pay it back (and more, hopefully).
Having a quick look around, I found this blog post from Kiva who helped pioneer microlending in the developing world. The answer seems to be "yes, but credit isn't enough to turn anyone into an entrepreneur": http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/fellowsblog/2013/03/22/how-effec...
As a bit of a rant: the West is generally overburdened with consumer credit. People panic when the value of their house goes below that of their mortgage, which is called negative equity. But (almost) every consumer credit agreement leads to this negative equity. It's mad.
I can see it now: for the low, low price of $40 (times three companies) you can check once to see if someone has bypassed the 30-year-old security on your MasterCard(tm)(c)(r)(pp) ID and fraudulently used it for border crossing or employment. Then, for the low price of a few hundred dollars and many hours of your time (x 3 companies, natch) you can dispute the ID usage and get yourself removed from the watch lists that pop up nasty red symbols and words like "suspected forgery / illegal alien / terrorist watch list" whenever a future employer tries to verify your biometrics. Of course, the police and TSA still get the vague but serious-sounding warnings, so you still get pulled off of planes for extra pat downs and an extra 45 minutes added to every traffic stop, but hey, at least you can get a job.
An then what would be the next step? No more cash payments?
MasterCard does seem to be working towards that. It isn't a meritless goal either; a recent study estimated that cash costs the USA $200B a year, or around 1.5% of GDP:
> An then what would be the next step? No more cash payments?
Yes. From the article:
"“In close collaboration with both the public and private sectors to achieve the full potential of this program, NIMC is focused on inclusive citizenship, more effective governance, and the creation of a cashless economy, all of which will stimulate economic growth, investment and trade,” he adds."
>Plus, is there any proof that access to credit for really poor people is actually creating wealth?
Not that I can detect. It just seems to be a mantra that is repeated enough to be assumed true. It was one of the repeated justifications for a similar card recently created for public transportation payment in Chicago.
MasterCard can be (and is) used all around the world as a debit card. Giving credit to the customers and defining its limits is up to the issuing bank.
While this is a bit strange when issued as a government ID, the cards seem familiar to me: In Norway, pretty much all debit cards - including ones with VISA and Mastercard - have picture ids on the back that are valid in most instances a formal government id would be, and it's the primary id document for a substantial percentage of people.
It caused a few amusing episodes when I first moved to the UK and still had my Norwegian accounts, when shop clerks would look at me with a puzzled look, wondering why in the world I tried paying with an id card - until I pointed out the VISA logo.
So MasterCard have in one swoop pretty much monopolised the entire payments industry of an entire country? Helping the unbanked is probably a good thing (probably) but I wonder how expensive these cards will be, or will become.
I personally would hate the idea of having a "Mastercard" branded ID card or passport here in the UK. Maybe in Nigeria it's the lesser of two evils, perhaps not.
Here's an excerpt from the Mastercard press release with a few more details:
"MasterCard has pioneered large scale card schemes that combine biometric functionality with electronic payments and we want to capitalize on their experience... enrollment process involves the recording of an individual’s demographic data and biometric data (capture of 10 fingerprints, facial picture and digital signature)..." http://newsroom.mastercard.com/press-releases/mastercard-to-...
I wonder how Americans would feel if the U.S. government teamed up with Mastercard, devised a similar biometric ID card -- and required all U.S. citizens to obtain one to drive, pay taxes, get government benefits, vote, etc.? (I also wonder what "demographic data" referred to above means, and whether it means everyone's religion will be encoded on the ID...)
> I wonder how Americans would feel if the U.S. government teamed up with Mastercard, devised a similar biometric ID card -- and required all U.S. citizens to obtain one to drive, pay taxes, get government benefits, vote, etc.? (I also wonder what "demographic data" referred to above means, and whether it means everyone's religion will be encoded on the ID...)
hopefully nauseous. a national ID is bad enough; a national ID ran by a private conglomerate is worse. The privacy implications are harrowing either way, from a personal standpoint.
Back in the nineties, when Java was still the next big thing, manufacturers promised that we would carry a single Java smartcard for all applications: identification, credit cards, electronic wallets, etc.
As we now know this never happened. The biggest reason is marketing: every company wants to have their own logo on the card, which is impossible to do with a generic card.
Reference from 1998: ftp://service.boulder.ibm.com/software/pervasive/info/javacard.pdf
On a related note, I recently found out that all SIM cards run JavaCard applications. Apparently SIM applications are not uncommon in countries where smartphones still aren't common.
Sounds like a data protection nightmare. Is there any information about the chip design and whether both purposes are strictly separated? Who is maintaining the ID information, MasterCard? Is a POS allowed to read ID data?
What kind of ID data are you referring to? If when I swiped my credit card the point of sale could see my name, year of birth, and picture I would consider that a good thing.
With my drivers license for example anyone I hand the card to can read name, date of birth address, picture, because those things are printed on the outside of the card.
"The new cards carry two photographs of the holder, and a chip storing an individual's biometric information including 10 fingerprints and an iris scan using a system developed by Cryptovision." [0]
Another commenter notes "a bunch of college campuses have College ID cards that were also mastercards." I would just add to this that Chicago launched public transit cards this year that are also Mastercards. http://www.ventrachicago.com
Well, I for one can't see any issues with an entire country of poorly educated people being given a card that with a flip of a switch, introduce them to the crippling force of 25.5% compound interest.
I wish I had no morals, making money would be so easy.
I was born in Nigeria and grew up there until I was 17 and from what I know about everyday life in Nigeria, the implementation of this system could be astoundingly complex. In the foreseeable future, I think that only about 20% of the population will end up using this system because for most of Nigeria, life is primarily focused around a cash economy.
Nigerian life is rife with many daily issues that foster a large distrust of institutions and the government. Master Card and their POS machines, cash and voting machines would have to build that trust. Life in Nigeria also involves a lot of wary informal trading between many half-educated people (elementary school) who do not use banks, do not use any services that are provided by the government/any large institution, and do not use any automated services at all.
That trust is already lost with Mastercard's association with the Nigerian government because the relationship between the people and the government is quite sour. The government, the leadership of the country (and a good chunk of the people) are daily involved in corruption.
There are many things in Nigeria that you just can't actually do except you bribe, or know someone on the inside who will protect you from having to spend money to bribe. Nepotism tends to be the only alternative to bribery. This sort of thing is widespread, from purchasing a car, to passing an exam (yes, sometimes) to just using a roadside mechanic, to driving from point A to point B (you will have to bribe the police to pass a check point, even if you have no fault). Adopting a checks-and-balances master card system in this kind of a society will be ridiculous at best. The everyday institutions, and millions of people (yes millions!) who thrive on these corrupt systems simply do not want such a system. Neither does the government. The government is the most corrupt of all organizations in Nigeria.
Because the problems are so entrenched, it would take a long time for a large portion of the population to start using this. (BTW The voting part of it is a joke, or maybe a dream).
Master card is probably only seeking to gain with the growing upper middle class that work in a mostly formal economy and mostly live in Lagos. If this section of society adopts their system, they can seek to gain with time. However, they would need to maintain a good wall between themselves and the federal government if they want to gain trust and make not reduce this thing to a joke.
Also, could we soon see a blockchain backed implementation of this? i imagine a wallet w/ pointers to biometricChain and facialImageChain could be strung together easily enough and deployed to any national network.
[+] [-] vicpara|11 years ago|reply
An then what would be the next step? No more cash payments? If you pay by cash the whole system would flag you as potential threat?
Plus, is there any prove that access to credit for really poor people is actually creating wealth ? This is the modern slavery and anyone who has credit in west either for education or commercial purpose has felt on its own skin what means to work for paying up the debt.
God help us all!
[+] [-] eaurouge|11 years ago|reply
That's a ridiculous statement. Yes, the country has been mismanaged by corrupt, inept leaders for a half-century. But despite their best attempts it's currently the largest economy in Africa and ranked 20th by the World Bank in gross national income (not per capita) for 2013.
[+] [-] guard-of-terra|11 years ago|reply
Why is that? Nigeria seems to be quite successful by African standards. They even make good movies. Of course not without problems, but they seem to have both spare money and some political will - a very rare thing to have in Africa.
[+] [-] rhodri|11 years ago|reply
Having a quick look around, I found this blog post from Kiva who helped pioneer microlending in the developing world. The answer seems to be "yes, but credit isn't enough to turn anyone into an entrepreneur": http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/fellowsblog/2013/03/22/how-effec...
As a bit of a rant: the West is generally overburdened with consumer credit. People panic when the value of their house goes below that of their mortgage, which is called negative equity. But (almost) every consumer credit agreement leads to this negative equity. It's mad.
[+] [-] jjoonathan|11 years ago|reply
Efficiency! Value creation! Huzzah!
[+] [-] true_religion|11 years ago|reply
It's the oil king of West Africa, more akin to a middle eastern state than anything else.
[+] [-] sliverstorm|11 years ago|reply
MasterCard does seem to be working towards that. It isn't a meritless goal either; a recent study estimated that cash costs the USA $200B a year, or around 1.5% of GDP:
http://www.amren.com/news/2013/10/paying-with-cash-costs-ame...
Obviously currency is worth spending money on, but that doesn't mean it has to be bank notes.
[+] [-] fredbrown|11 years ago|reply
Yes. From the article:
"“In close collaboration with both the public and private sectors to achieve the full potential of this program, NIMC is focused on inclusive citizenship, more effective governance, and the creation of a cashless economy, all of which will stimulate economic growth, investment and trade,” he adds."
[+] [-] pessimizer|11 years ago|reply
Not that I can detect. It just seems to be a mantra that is repeated enough to be assumed true. It was one of the repeated justifications for a similar card recently created for public transportation payment in Chicago.
[+] [-] vidarh|11 years ago|reply
The banking services would have to be backed by partner banks.
Mastercard is also not intrinsically linked to credit. You can get Mastercard debit cards in large parts of the world (as you can for VISA).
[+] [-] pilsetnieks|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vidarh|11 years ago|reply
It caused a few amusing episodes when I first moved to the UK and still had my Norwegian accounts, when shop clerks would look at me with a puzzled look, wondering why in the world I tried paying with an id card - until I pointed out the VISA logo.
[+] [-] TomGullen|11 years ago|reply
I personally would hate the idea of having a "Mastercard" branded ID card or passport here in the UK. Maybe in Nigeria it's the lesser of two evils, perhaps not.
[+] [-] true_religion|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] declan|11 years ago|reply
"MasterCard has pioneered large scale card schemes that combine biometric functionality with electronic payments and we want to capitalize on their experience... enrollment process involves the recording of an individual’s demographic data and biometric data (capture of 10 fingerprints, facial picture and digital signature)..." http://newsroom.mastercard.com/press-releases/mastercard-to-...
I wonder how Americans would feel if the U.S. government teamed up with Mastercard, devised a similar biometric ID card -- and required all U.S. citizens to obtain one to drive, pay taxes, get government benefits, vote, etc.? (I also wonder what "demographic data" referred to above means, and whether it means everyone's religion will be encoded on the ID...)
[+] [-] serf|11 years ago|reply
hopefully nauseous. a national ID is bad enough; a national ID ran by a private conglomerate is worse. The privacy implications are harrowing either way, from a personal standpoint.
[+] [-] moheeb|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] illuminut|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] praseodym|11 years ago|reply
As we now know this never happened. The biggest reason is marketing: every company wants to have their own logo on the card, which is impossible to do with a generic card.
Reference from 1998: ftp://service.boulder.ibm.com/software/pervasive/info/javacard.pdf
[+] [-] Omni5cience|11 years ago|reply
Check out https://simhacks.github.io/defcon-21/
[+] [-] DannyBee|11 years ago|reply
They also forced you to activate them (she asked repeatedly if she could avoid them), so you could not just disable the credit card functionality.
What mastercard has done here seems the logical next step.
At pace, this was called the "pace onecard".
[+] [-] einrealist|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] seanflyon|11 years ago|reply
With my drivers license for example anyone I hand the card to can read name, date of birth address, picture, because those things are printed on the outside of the card.
[+] [-] fredbrown|11 years ago|reply
"The new cards carry two photographs of the holder, and a chip storing an individual's biometric information including 10 fingerprints and an iris scan using a system developed by Cryptovision." [0]
[0] http://www.zdnet.com/nigeria-launches-new-biometric-id-card-...
[+] [-] dang|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hammock|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dunno|11 years ago|reply
I wish I had no morals, making money would be so easy.
[+] [-] natrius|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kevinkimball|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] robertmarley|11 years ago|reply
Nigerian life is rife with many daily issues that foster a large distrust of institutions and the government. Master Card and their POS machines, cash and voting machines would have to build that trust. Life in Nigeria also involves a lot of wary informal trading between many half-educated people (elementary school) who do not use banks, do not use any services that are provided by the government/any large institution, and do not use any automated services at all.
That trust is already lost with Mastercard's association with the Nigerian government because the relationship between the people and the government is quite sour. The government, the leadership of the country (and a good chunk of the people) are daily involved in corruption.
There are many things in Nigeria that you just can't actually do except you bribe, or know someone on the inside who will protect you from having to spend money to bribe. Nepotism tends to be the only alternative to bribery. This sort of thing is widespread, from purchasing a car, to passing an exam (yes, sometimes) to just using a roadside mechanic, to driving from point A to point B (you will have to bribe the police to pass a check point, even if you have no fault). Adopting a checks-and-balances master card system in this kind of a society will be ridiculous at best. The everyday institutions, and millions of people (yes millions!) who thrive on these corrupt systems simply do not want such a system. Neither does the government. The government is the most corrupt of all organizations in Nigeria.
Because the problems are so entrenched, it would take a long time for a large portion of the population to start using this. (BTW The voting part of it is a joke, or maybe a dream).
Master card is probably only seeking to gain with the growing upper middle class that work in a mostly formal economy and mostly live in Lagos. If this section of society adopts their system, they can seek to gain with time. However, they would need to maintain a good wall between themselves and the federal government if they want to gain trust and make not reduce this thing to a joke.
[+] [-] mr_spothawk|11 years ago|reply
Also, could we soon see a blockchain backed implementation of this? i imagine a wallet w/ pointers to biometricChain and facialImageChain could be strung together easily enough and deployed to any national network.
[+] [-] frederickf|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] guard-of-terra|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taksintik|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChrisArchitect|11 years ago|reply