NIGERIA – Bolt, one of the world’s largest online transportation platform, has developed a new identity verification portal for its drivers.

According to the firm, the new platform, was created in partnership with a data aggregation and acquisition company, YouVerify.

Bolt’s Marketing Manager, Opemipo Kehinde, said since inception, the firm had been working on ways to improve safety, adding that the new initiative was one of them.

Kehinde explained that as part of the partnership, a fully customised portal was developed for Bolt where drivers could request and check their verification as part of the driver onboard process.

According to Kehinde,  the driver verification portal was an addition to Bolt’s suite of safety features including an SOS button in the driver app, a 24-hour high-priority team, and the ability to share the details and route of an ongoing ride.

The online transport platform’s City Manager for Lagos, Femi Akin-Laguda, said that as part of its strategy of building trust, Bolt would continue developing solutions aimed at enhancing the safety of its customers, both drivers and riders.

Bolt has over the last three years, focused on the continuous improvement of the level of detail and robustness of the process used to validate the identity of all the drivers wishing to be part of the platform.

 “We are very excited to announce that we have now partnered YouVerify, a leading identity aggregation technology company, to build an industry-leading self-serve driver verification portal which is the first of its kind to be rolled out on our market,” Akin-Laguda said.

According to him, the portal was developed in partnership with the firm’s supply operations team ensuring that it would effectively meet needs and not be excessively intrusive for driver-partners.

Akin-Laguda said the identity verification portal would allow Bolt to conduct checks that were not available before, and be more comprehensive for the existing checks.

 The Chief Executive Officer, YouVerify, Gbenga Odegbami, said the firm’s advanced background verification had helped institutions build trust between companies and individuals in the past.

Bolt plans to roll out the system in stages beginning with Lagos where it has gone live, and followed by Abuja and Port Harcourt and will be available across Nigeria in the coming months.

It also revealed that the system was only available in Nigeria but would be replicated in other markets around the world in future.