Overview
Askari Bank Limited (AKBL) partnered with truID, a comprehensive biometric identity verification platform and a NUST spin-off, to elevate its digital account opening experience. truID is Pakistan's only indigenous pioneer of touchless fingerprint biometrics, offering a complete suite of AI-powered verification capabilities including face liveness detection, ID–Selfie Matching, document authentication, CNIC OCR with Urdu transliteration, and smartphone-based touchless fingerprint capture without the need for hardware scanners. For AKBL, truID delivered a customized Digital Account Opening App and SDK for both Android and iOS. This was integrated directly into the Askari Digital mobile application along with a fully on-premises identity verification service that aligns with State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) regulations. truID's strong performance, including 96.6 percent overall accuracy, 99 percent face liveness detection, 91 percent first-attempt NADRA match, 93 percent document authentication accuracy, and more than 80 percent touchless fingerprint match success, enabled AKBL to offer a secure, smooth, and fully touchless onboarding experience. To date, truID has completed more than 2.6 million verifications, including over 165,000 verifications for Askari Bank.
Challenges
Enable Fully Remote Account Opening: AKBL needed a digital onboarding solution that allowed customers to open accounts through the Askari Digital app without visiting a branch and without relying on hardware fingerprint scanners.
Strengthen Identity Security and Ensure SBP Compliance: The solution required passive face liveness detection that prevents photo, video, and mask attacks; Identity document authenticity checks; CNIC OCR with Urdu text extraction; ID–Selfie facial matching; NADRA Verisys integration; Complete compliance with SBP digital KYC regulations.
Support Multiple Government-Issued IDs: The bank needed accurate data extraction, transliteration, and document classification for Pakistani identity documents.
Provide Administrative Oversight: AKBL required a platform that offered an audit trail, manual verification capabilities, and editable OCR fields.
Reduce Hardware Dependency: The bank aimed to eliminate traditional biometric devices to lower operational costs and accelerate onboarding through touchless, camera-based fingerprints.
Solution
truID delivered a complete on-premises identity verification and digital onboarding framework tailored specifically for Askari Bank.
Custom Digital Account Opening App and SDK: The mobile SDK was designed to match existing AKBL workflows and mirrors the functionality of the Digital Onboarding Web App; Integrates directly with the Askari Digital mobile application; Enables upload of customer signatures and proof of income; Supports FATCA checks; Guides users on nearest branch options, internet banking username preferences, and cheque book size selection; Provides account type recommendations based on bank policies; Offers modifiable OCR outputs for administrative corrections.
truID On-Premises Identity Verification Service: Fully hosted inside AKBL's secure data environment, the verification service includes Facial Verification with Passive 3D liveness detection and ID–Selfie facial matching; Document Authentication and OCR with detection of forgery, tampering, and copy attacks with 93 percent accuracy, CNIC OCR with 95 percent accuracy, Urdu-to-English transliteration, and Automatic classification of identity documents.
Touchless Fingerprint Biometrics: Using standard smartphone cameras: AI-driven fingerprint capture that requires no external devices; NIST NFIQ 2.0 compliant; Capture time between 1 and 5 seconds; More than 80 percent match success; 500 ppi output resolution; Complete offline capability; Up to 95 percent reduction in cost compared to traditional biometric scanners. Fingerprints and identity details are verified against the NADRA database through the NADRA Verisys API.
Admin Dashboard: Manual verification for doubtful cases; Editable OCR fields; Full audit trail for every verification step.
Impact and Results
Overall System Accuracy: 96.6%
NADRA Match Accuracy: 91% on first attempt
Face Liveness: 99%
Document Authentication: 93%
CNIC OCR Accuracy: 95%
Touchless Fingerprint Match: 80%+
Fingerprint Capture Time: 1 to 5 seconds
Output Resolution: 500 ppi
Offline Capability: 100%
Cost Reduction vs Hardware Scanners: 95%
AKBL Verifications Completed: 165,000+
Total truID Verifications: 2.6 million+
Delivered a fully touchless and frictionless digital onboarding experience
Enabled secure remote account opening without hardware biometric devices
Strengthened fraud detection through advanced liveness checks and document analysis
Achieved full SBP compliance across verification steps
Provided transparent workflows with detailed audit trails
Reduced operational costs significantly
Enabled scalable and user-friendly biometric onboarding for all customer types
Conclusion
The partnership between Askari Bank and truID, a NUST spin-off, sets a new benchmark for digital onboarding in Pakistan. By integrating AI-driven facial liveness, ICAO photo verification, CNIC OCR, document authentication, and touchless fingerprint biometrics, AKBL now offers a secure and seamless digital account opening journey that eliminates hardware dependency. With its fully on-premises deployment, NADRA integration, and high verification accuracy, Askari Bank has successfully completed more than 165,000 verifications, contributing to truID's broader footprint of over 2.6 million identity checks across Pakistan. Askari Bank stands among the earliest adopters of fully touchless biometric onboarding in the country and continues to lead the industry with a secure, scalable, and future-ready digital identity infrastructure.