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MasterCard-Branded National eID Card Launched in Nigeria

zdnet.com

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Re: MasterCard-Branded National eID Card Launched in Nigeria

#21

Post by guard-of-terra »

vicpara wrote: post #14

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…

"Nigeria, a country that has nothing to loose"

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.

Re: MasterCard-Branded National eID Card Launched in Nigeria

#23

Post by guard-of-terra »

jjoonathan wrote: post #17
vicpara wrote: post #14

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…

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 th…

ID is (expectedly) a different application on the card chip. Not in any way related to MasterCard acccount.

You can't have Nigerian ID on your card and Nigerians can't enter country illegally on your MasterCard credit account. It's orthogonal things.

Re: MasterCard-Branded National eID Card Launched in Nigeria

#25

Post by pessimizer »

vicpara wrote: post #14

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…

>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.

Re: MasterCard-Branded National eID Card Launched in Nigeria

#27

Post by jjoonathan »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #23
jjoonathan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

ID is (expectedly) a different application on the card chip. Not in any way related to MasterCard acccount. You can't have Nigerian ID on your card and Nigerians can't enter country illegally on your MasterCard credit account. It's orthogonal things.

I know. I was projecting the shitshow in the payment processing industry onto a national ID program in order to argue that the same techniques used to extract money (not to mention anticompetitive staying power) from the payment-processing system would work just as well if not better in a national ID system.

Is MasterCard to blame for those ridiculous sytems? Not specifically, but if the same incentives are in place (and they are, that was the point of my imaginitive story) then I fear that anyone involved in the business end of a privatization effort for, say, US IDs could copy the business model of "half-ass the security to generate pain, make your money as the exclusive provider (or licensor) of half-assed solutions to the generated pain." It's a good business model, which is why it's imperative that we keep business interests away from the most lucrative targets.

Alternatively we could try to fix this horrendous perverse incentive, but I think that's a much shakier approach that would be much easier for the wrong people to work around.

Re: MasterCard-Branded National eID Card Launched in Nigeria

#28

Post by icebraining »

pilsetnieks wrote: post #16
vicpara wrote: post #14

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…

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.

It doesn't even have to provide debit. Banks here in Portugal also issue cards for university students, in partnership with them. In the end it's just an advertising scheme, you don't need to have an account to attend school :)

Re: MasterCard-Branded National eID Card Launched in Nigeria

#29

Post by schoen »

rhodri wrote: post #20
vicpara wrote: post #14

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…

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…

What a useful way of putting it.

Can you think of an institutional or cultural way to get people in the West out of some of their consumer credit traps? I don't think the lenders are going to help!

Re: MasterCard-Branded National eID Card Launched in Nigeria

#30

Post by true_religion »

vicpara wrote: post #14

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…

Nigeria is a poor country?

It's the oil king of West Africa, more akin to a middle eastern state than anything else.

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