BACE API

We are solving challenges affecting the African market such as the poor Identity scheme, financial exclusion, and cybercrimes. 

We provide BACE API, a robust digital identity system using facial recognition and AI that enables businesses especially financial institutions to verify local people's identities remotely and to give them access to online services especially financial services in the safest way.

Note that most AI facial recognition systems are not ideally suited for African conditions. Bace API has been built to suit the broader African market and is also far more cost-effective and scalable. Also, BACE has been built with the socio-cultural context in mind by ensures Africa’s share of the Global 7 billion dollar facial recognition market.

The problem is that financial institutions are struggling to meet the KYC requirement due to the poor identity scheme in Africa and online identity fraud.

According to the World Bank's Development Identification Program (ID4D), more than 40% of the world's people without an ID live in Africa. Note that Having an official identity is essential for anyone involved in a modern economy to have access to basic rights and services. Unfortunately, this lack of identity excludes this part of the population from basic services such as access to financial services, access to the right to vote, and access to education.

We also note in 2017 that cybercrime cost African businesses around $ 3.5 billion. Africa is now considered as one of the growing regions in terms of cybercrime activity, a real challenge for financial institutions, which struggle to stay compliant and protect their customers' data.

The point is, how can local people access financial services in the safest way and without any form of exclusion in Africa? 

Our solution impacts people living in Africa and those who don't have access to the physical branches in their region. Also, We are targeting businesses that provide basics services such as loans, savings, online payment, online transactions.

We spoke with Ghana-based financial institutions to identify and understand their challenges and how we can solve them. Based on this market research, we opened a conversation with local people who feel left out. Then we paired the two surveys together and found a solution that bridges the gap between financial services and the population.

When developing our product, we were engaging with businesses to ensure that the solution can be easily integrated into their existing applications with a seamless and simple user experience for the beneficiaries.

At BACE, Our work has the objectives to:

• Create unique digital identities for any citizens by investing and using bio metrics technologies, especially facial recognition.
• Help people to apply for online services and get verified remotely in real-time at any time and anywhere.
• Create a secure environment between businesses and citizens, protecting personal data, and investing in raising awareness among end-users who are always the weakest link in the chain.

Our solution aligns with the challenge as we are targeting a large part of the local population who come into contact with online services and / or who have been excluded from basic services. We help businesses provide remote access to their online services to these local populations while protecting their personal data. Note that in response to Covid19, companies can now authenticate and onboard new or existing customers using the BACE API without having to meet them in person. The whole process is transparent, secure, remote, and digital.

Our competitors are Jumio, Trulio, and smile Identity. We all provide an identity verification system using biometric technology. Compared to our competitors, we are uniquely positioned in the local market as an identity verification platform, our API uses liveness detection, OCR for data extraction and can easily be consumed by any system, our security is Compliant with the latest internationally accepted standards (fast, secure and global), we plan to include student ID verification and we provide  customs services.

BACE is a cloud service. Our verification process is simple, fast, secure, and efficient. We provide robust liveness detection using facial recognition and AI technologies. We are using these technologies by extracting the right information from the ID documents submitted and having them matched to the digital identification systems. 

The verification process with the BACE API consists of:

-Prove that the person is alive, real and does not correspond to a robot.

-The person behind the screen corresponds with the photo on his identity document. The client is who they claim to be.

-The data is then extracted from the identity document (The surname, first name, and identification number of the person).

-All data is then matched with facial biometrics in an issuing authority or government department.

You can have access to our sandbox to get familiar with our API:

Sandbox: https://dashboard.bacegroup.com

Email: demo@bacgroup.com

Password: demopassword

The financial landscape has experienced various fraudulent practices which have left most companies with no option but to be strict on Know Your Customer(KYC) compliance. These measures taken may have reduced those ill occurrences, but it has financially excluded some people who may not have met those requirements. Most financial institutions spend a lot of money on ensuring they are KYC compliant. They can also incur some fines should they decide to cut corners. Apart from the cost implications, there is also a considerable amount of time spent on making sure that the customer is who they say they are. Performing customer due diligence is pertinent to make sure that financial institutions comply with the requirements of relevant legislation and regulation, to provide them with the products or services requested to guard against fraud, including impersonation and identity fraud. Our solution aims to financially include those that have been excluded using facial recognition. This is powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning. Financial institutions can now be able to perform customer due diligence at a minimal cost and within a considerable time. We plan to extend the BACE API to include student ID verification. Making it seamless for students to own a bank account. This is a way of banking the unbanked and further drive to more financial inclusion.

BACE API is built on high-security standards and can easily be consumed by any system.

BACE API is used to perform ID enrollment, ID search and ID verification via facial recognition, Liveness detection and Ghana ID validation.

We plan to create and verify 1 million of digital identities using Facial recognition in Africa.

The key milestones we aim to achieve:

- Extend the BACE API to include the verification of the student ID card
- Closing of 10 sales agreements with potential customers based in Africa
- Digitize, secure and verify 1,000,000 African identities by 2025

Our strategies to achieve these milestones are:
- To focus on the African market
- To partner with locals universities and enrolled student ID cards into BACE API. This will unlock financial opportunities for students.
- We are aware that we are dealing with sensitive data, and we need to build trust in the market by
strengthening the security of our product, supporting local efforts, and creating content to educate our
target.
- We are currently offering a pilot phase to fintech companies, we believe that it is a good strategy to make
the use of our API and connect to our potential clients. 

We are currently facing one of the main risks, Not having sufficient and qualified human resources to help us drive and achieve our vision. Unfortunately, in a few months, we will run out of funding. 

The main external risk over the next two years could be regulation. To be honest, we are in developing countries and some regulations do not facilitate the process, usually for local start-ups. Also, companies don't trust technology as they claim. 

To overcome these risks, we started to look for opportunities to raise grants and seed investment. We believe in collaboration and plan to recruit AI software engineers and local talent to support us in product development and the sales process.

Since we use advanced technologies and plan to disrupt the African market, we are aware that we must continue to build trust and educate our current market. We must also establish key partnerships with leaders in the financial and tech sectors to communicate the use and benefits of the BACE API as an effective solution to cybercrime activities, the poor identity schemes, mobility challenges, and financial exclusion. 

Full time staff : 3

Part time staff: 2

Charlette N’Guessan, Ivorian, Co-founder, and CEO of BACE GROUP. She understands the  African tech ecosystem. Certified Digital Identity and AI book Co-author, she has a  background in electronic and software engineering. She is currently a student in data science and machine learning.

Samuel Mensah,  Ghanaian,  Co-founder of BACE Group, he is an avid software engineer with 12 years of development experience. As a data scientist, He is passionate about efficient processes, with an interest in
the financial industry and AI.

Ugwu Arinze Christopher, Nigerian, Co-founder of BACE Group. He is very passionate about the use of technology to make business processes more efficient. He is a data scientist and has a background in Electronics Engineering, experience in software application development.

Jean Cedric Attiembonon, Ivorian, Co-founder of BACE Group. He holds a Master's degree in Computer Science Management. He is passionate about IT & business management and any technology-related business.

We are partners with a certified government-issued Identity Data Controller for the Ghanaian market. Our collaboration is based on revenue shared.

We have a transaction-driven B2B business model. We charge $0.01 per API call and $100 for a one-time setup cost.

Our current clients are in the financial industry, none of which we can currently disclose. However we have studied other industries and we noticed that our solution can be used by organizations in the public sector, transport (For example, companies like Uber can use our API when onboarding their drivers for identity verification), security companies that provide security hardware solutions can integrate BACE API to identify intruders or unknown persons using video surveillance and telco companies can use our solution for online sim card registration.

Being part of this program will give us the opportunity to improve our skills in sales and business, Build credibility around our product in the African market, Connect to mentors, entrepreneurs and potential clients. Expand our network and learn from the global ecosystem. Also, it is a great opportunity to showcase our product , to share tips about cyber-security and to share a deep understanding of the use of innovative technologies such as AI and facial recognition in developing markets. We would like to work with a business mentor who understands our field and has experience in the African market and / or international market. At the end of this relationship, we expect a clarification of the development and growth objectives of our company; acquire new knowledge related to our field, draw on our experiences to better meet the challenges of entrepreneurship and develop good strategy to be more efficient in our markets.