CBC launches digital onboarding project

The Central Bank of Cyprus (CBC) announced that it has officially launched a digital onboarding project – aimed at implementing remote customer identity verification – in collaboration with local banks.

The initiative seeks to streamline and enhance customer service processes for faster and more efficient services, the CBC said.

The agreement was signed between the CBC and a consortium that was selected following a competition initiated under the direction of CBC Governor Constantinos Herodotou.

The competition’s objective was to modernise the Cypriot banking system by providing fast, flexible, reliable, and efficient banking services.

The CBC said the competition focused on selecting a technological solution for creating a platform for remote electronic submission and identification or updating of customer details by credit institutions.

The project aims to significantly improve the speed and quality of service for the real economy, including businesses, self-employed individuals, and households. It comprises three phases, starting with remote digital onboarding and reviewing. This phase enables the electronic submission and identification of new customers’ details and the updating of existing customer information without requiring physical presence.

The project will then focus on establishing a connection to government services. In this phase, there will be a direct link to government services for the immediate retrieval of customer information, enhancing the Know Your Customer (KYC) process, the CBC said, noting that “this phase will be executed once the necessary service providers are ready”.

The final and third phase, which focuses on information sharing, will facilitate the exchange of identified customer information among participating credit institutions, enabling the transfer of customer accounts from one credit institution to another upon the customer’s request.

Several banks have already confirmed their participation in the project, including the Bank of Cyprus, Hellenic Bank, Alpha Bank Cyprus, Astrobank Public Company Limited, Cyprus Development Bank, and Eurobank Cyprus.