Maya has reduced account verification time by 84% by combining the Philippine National ID system with artificial intelligence (AI), showing how banks and financial technology companies can simplify customer onboarding without removing security checks.
The digital bank has integrated National ID eVerify, the Philippine Statistics Authority’s identity verification service, into its onboarding process. Eligible customers can upgrade their Maya accounts by entering their National ID number instead of photographing and uploading a physical ID.
Maya checks the information against government-held National ID records and confirms the customer’s identity through a video selfie. If details are missing, the app asks only for the additional information needed.
Customers who cannot be verified through National ID eVerify can use the regular ID-upload process without restarting their application.
The move comes as the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) proposes requiring supervised financial institutions to connect with National ID authentication services for customer identity checks. Wider adoption could reduce paperwork and make opening or upgrading financial accounts easier for Filipinos.
“National digital infrastructure gives us a trusted foundation to build on,” said Alfred Lo, chief technology officer at Maya. “By combining the National ID with homegrown AI and automation, we can remove friction for customers while keeping verification robust and scalable. It shows how shared digital infrastructure can make financial services easier to access and safer to scale.”
Behind the system, Maya uses agentic AI, or AI that can complete specific steps within set rules, to check information, detect possible duplicate accounts, perform required screening, and send unusual cases to employees for review.
The process has reduced the time employees spend on repetitive checks, allowing them to focus on investigations and cases that need human judgment.
Maya said the faster process does not weaken its safeguards. The company continues to follow applicable BSP rules covering know-your-customer procedures, identity verification, screening, and other required checks.
Maya presented the system at the BSP AI Summit as one of three companies invited to demonstrate the use of AI in the Philippine financial sector.
“For us, the real test of AI is not how advanced the model sounds. It is whether it solves a real customer problem safely, reliably, and at scale,” said Melecio Valerio, head of Data Governance at Maya.
The National ID integration forms part of Maya’s wider use of AI across credit decisions, fraud detection, customer service, personalized services, and internal operations.