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ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services
Ecosystem
We find that technical features may be associated with functional applications of national identity programs
(Table 10). Programs that are embedded with electronic and biometric features are more likely to be linked to
a greater variety of functions. Digitalized ID programs where ID cards include an electronic component or do
not contain any physical component are linked with an average of 4.5 different types of services, compared to
1.5 types for non-digital programs. ID programs that collect biometric information have a mean of 3.8 service
linkages, compared to 2.3 for programs that do not.
Table 10 – Mean Number of Service Linkages by Technical Features
Technical Features Number of Programs Mean Number of Service Linkages
Digital 31 4.5
Non-Digital 17 1.5
Biometrics 36 3.8
Non-Biometrics 12 2.3
In the following two sections, we highlight national identity program characteristics associated with financial
and health linkages.
6.2 Finance
As described in section 5.1, 24 national identity programs have or plan to have financial connections. Figure
16 illustrates that in most regions, over half of national identity programs have or plan financial linkages,
led by Sub-Saharan Africa (62 percent) and followed closely by South Asia (60 percent) and South East Asia
(57 percent). Just one of the four ID programs in the Middle East and North Africa, and none of the three ID
programs in Europe, have financial linkages.
Figure 16 – Percentage of ID Programs with Financial Linkages (by Region)
As shown in Figure 17, 58 percent of the 24 programs with financial linkages were introduced in the last ten
years. Seven programs with financial linkages were launched in the last five years (Ecuador, Nigeria – Bank
Verification Number (BVN), Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Uganda, Uzbekistan). However, we do not observe
any trends in the proportion of programs with financial linkages in each time period. The three programs
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