February 7 (SeeNews) - Global technology company Mastercard will provide a range of digital solutions to the citizens of North Macedonia allowing them to prove their identity when accessing government and business services, Mastercard said on Friday.
The partnership is intended to bring local digital identity and related services – like digital document signing and verification – that the citizens of North Macedonia can use across a number of day-to-day activities, the company said in a press release.
"By signing a Memorandum of Understanding [with Mastercard], we put the beginning to a series of activities which will be conducted by Mastercard and the government," information society minister Damjan Mancevski told reporters at the official signing ceremony in Skopje. "To implement the project, our partners will invest 3 million euro ($3.3 million)," he added.
"With this service, they [the citizens of North Macedonia] can use a digital identity for public services, while maintaining control of their information with security, privacy and trust.” Ajay Bhalla, president of cyber and intelligence for Mastercard, said, as quoted in the company statement.
Among the first applications are electronic Know Your Customer activities to support remote opening for new bank accounts and new prepaid and postpaid mobile phone accounts.
The project will build on the newly created digital identity regulations in N. Macedonia and broader European electronic identification, authentication and trust services (eIDAS) standards, the company said in the statement. It will enable digital interactions between businesses and government agencies across the world and the region.
The partnership will promote open collaboration with governments, banks, mobile network operators, universities and other partners to shape the services. In addition to the digital identity service, Mastercard will also support other e-government initiatives and promote related best practices from other geographies, the company said.
The North Macedonian/Mastercard digital identity service is based on a distributed model that eliminates the need for a centralised identity database. It builds on Mastercard’s consumer-centric approach outlined in a Principles of Digital Identity vision paper that prioritizes privacy-by-design.
Mastercard, a technology company in the global payments industry, is present in more than 210 countries and territories.
($ = 0.9130 euro)