Why is it difficult to authenticate identity with banking applications and e-wallets?

From July 1, all money transfers worth over 10 million VND must have their faces checked with those of the person opening the bank account. The account holder's face must also be checked with the information on the chip-embedded citizen identification card (CCCD).

In just a few days, the new regulation will officially take effect. However, many users are still having trouble authenticating their chip-embedded CCCD cards with banking applications and e-wallets.

Mr. Nguyen Anh Cuong (Hanoi) said that after struggling to authenticate his identity on the app for a while, he had to ask someone knowledgeable about technology to do it for him, but it still didn't work. "If it takes this long, I might have to go back to using cash," this user said indignantly.

In a similar situation, Mr. Tuan Anh (District 7, Ho Chi Minh City) had difficulty authenticating his ID card on his iPhone app: “When the bank asked me to authenticate my account, I thought it was reasonable so I did it right away. With the Android phone I was using, I just had to lightly touch my ID card to the device and it was done. But with my wife's iPhone, no matter how I touched it, it didn't work even though the device I was using was the latest generation.”

The concern of Mr. Cuong, Mr. Tuan Anh and many other users is why the authentication sometimes works and sometimes doesn't? Besides, what needs to be done to make the authentication of chip-embedded CCCD via the app go smoothly.

Expert Thai Tri Hung, CTO of MoMo e-wallet, said that updating biometric information from a chip-embedded ID card is a new experience for many people. NFC technology is not yet popular with all users, so the first experiences will be somewhat confusing.

Explaining why many users have problems authenticating chip-embedded ID cards via the application, after testing, the representative of this e-wallet noted some common problems with certain phone lines.

According to Mr. Hung, iPhone devices often have stricter security policies, which can cause difficulties in accessing and processing data from CCCD.

Specifically, users cannot update biometrics from the chip-embedded CCCD when using iPhone 6s or earlier. With iPhone 12, this model has a different NFC reader location compared to many previous products, so users sometimes encounter difficulties.

Meanwhile, the NFC reader hardware of iPhone 14 and iPhone 15 has different technology compared to previous models. This leads to difficulties when users update biometric information from the chip-embedded CCCD.

Sharing more, this expert said that with Android operating system phones, the NFC reader location of each phone line is different and diverse, so users may have difficulty identifying it.

In rarer cases, using NFC on some phones may require user permission or require disabling other NFC-related features. In such cases, users should be aware of doing this before proceeding with authentication.

To ensure the integration of chip-embedded CCCD and facial authentication goes smoothly, users need to update the application to the latest version, ensure that the chip-embedded CCCD is still valid and the information on the CCCD is accurate. In addition, a mobile device that supports NFC is also a necessary condition to ensure authentication.

The facial authentication process requires an internet connection to quickly download and compare data, so users need to actively connect to a stable internet connection. When taking facial photos, users should ensure good lighting, evenly lit faces, and no obstructions.