Under the programme, financial institutions that subscribe to Benefit will be able to instantly complete KYC and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) compliance procedures when onboarding new individual and corporate customers through Fenergo's eKYC hub and rules engine utilising blockchain.

The centralisation of customer data removes the need for duplicate requests for information, says the vendor, eliminating manual procedures and enabling financial institutions to onboard new customers and products swiftly and seamlessly.

The Fenergo cloud-based utility enables financial institutions to verify customer identity via biometric verification which links to Bahrain national identity card data before instantly connecting to the eKYC hub. Once the customer is onboarded, Fenergo will write data attestations to a blockchain for reuse by other financial institutions within the Bahrain ecosystem.

Benefit CEO Abdulwahed AlJanahi says: “Benefit is committed to supporting financial institutions on their journey to digital transformation. By partnering with disruptive technology companies like Fenergo, we can deliver on our promise to help financial firms streamline and simplify the collection and management of customer data, improving customer experiences and minimising fraud.”

In December, regulatory authorities and banks in neighbouring Abu Dhabi recorded tangible benefits from trials of a similar shared Know Your Customer utility underpinned by distributed ledger technology. The app developed for the test phase provides users with a single location where customer identification and verification can be performed once for a customer, with the validated data securely shared by other participants.