Identity verification in Egypt: the FRA framework, government sources and national ID checks

Identity verification in Egypt's non-banking financial sector operates under the Financial Regulatory Authority (FRA). Decision 140 of 2023 defines the digital identity, and Decision 186 of 2024, amended by Decisions 30 of 2025 and 133 of 2026, governs the enquiry into the correctness of customer data. Each verification ends in a government source: the Civil Status Organization for national ID data and NTRA for mobile-number ownership.

The FRA framework: Decisions 139, 140 and 141 of 2023

The FRA board issued Decisions 139, 140 and 141 on 21 June 2023. Decision 139 sets the technology infrastructure, information systems, and protection and security requirements for using financial technology in non-banking financial activities. Decision 140 governs digital identity, digital contracts and the digital register. Decision 141 creates the outsourcing register (سجل مقدمي خدمات التعهيد) and bars unregistered parties from performing any outsourcing service. Decision 68 of 2025 amends Decisions 140 and 141.

Decision 140 names four fields for financial technology: electronic identification, verification and authentication (التحديد والتحقق والمصادقة); electronic customer onboarding; concluding contracts on non-banking financial products electronically; and recording, storage and retrieval from digital registers.

Digital identity under Decision 140 of 2023

Decision 140 establishes a digital identity through three sub-processes: identification, verification and authentication. Evidence falls into three factor families: knowledge, possession, and presence and liveness.

Annex 1 mandates the technical steps: live capture of the identity document, character and number recognition, a selfie for biometric comparison, and a genuineness check through a link with the competent administrative authorities or the API of the Authority's unified digital-identity system. For Egyptians, the national ID number is the basis of the identity. The mobile number is confirmed by SMS reply and verified as issued by a licensed operator and linked to the same national ID.

Creating or renewing a digital identity requires minimum factor counts.

• Four or more possession factors, including the identity document, an email inbox, the mobile number and the device number
• Three or more presence and liveness factors, including face biometrics, reaction liveness and geolocation
• Determination of cyber-location and transaction time
• Three knowledge factors: username, password and personal security answers

Verification against government sources

Two government sources anchor Egyptian identity verification under the FRA framework. The Civil Status Organization (الأحوال المدنية) holds the civil registry against which national ID data is checked. NTRA (الجهاز القومي لتنظيم الاتصالات) holds mobile-number ownership records, reached through the electronic linking system the Authority provides. VLens is integrated with both in real time.

The VLens engine runs six steps in a fixed order, and a failure at any step ends the sequence. National ID OCR precedes the enquiry call, so the data is sound before the enquiry cost is incurred.

• SMS code to the applicant's number
• Live national ID capture, Arabic OCR and anti-forgery screening
• Liveness and face match against the document photograph
• Civil Status Organization check of the national ID data
• NTRA check that the number belongs to the same national ID
• Digital identity written to the digital register with timestamps

National ID verification in Egypt: capture, Arabic OCR and forgery screening

The national ID card is captured live from the camera. Arabic OCR reads both faces: the 14-digit number, name, address, date of birth and expiry. Anti-forgery screening runs on the captured image, and cross-field checks compare the ID number, the date of birth and the card expiry.

The 14-digit number encodes the century and date of birth, the governorate of birth registration, and a serial whose last digit encodes gender. The fourteenth digit is a check digit whose algorithm is unpublished. Structural checks validate the input; the civil registry supplies the authoritative answer.

Egyptian documents print numbers in Eastern Arabic numerals (٠١٢٣٤٥٦٧٨٩), and names commonly run to four parts: given name, father, grandfather and family. Matching against a government record normalises Arabic orthography: the alef variants, ta marbuta against ha, and alef maqsura against ya. VLens's OCR, transliteration and anti-forgery models are trained on Egyptian document sets.

Liveness and face match

Annex 1 requires the applicant's liveness and reaction to be spontaneous rather than mechanical, established through the response to random prompts.

Egypt ID verification: document coverage and assurance levels

Assurance takes three forms: verification against a government record, validation on check digits, and extraction with format and cross-field validation.

Decision 186 of 2024 and its amendments

Decision 186 of 2024 is the original instrument on the enquiry into the correctness of customer data (الاستعلام عن صحة بيانات العملاء); Decisions 30 of 2025 and 133 of 2026 amend it. As amended by Decision 30 of 2025, it obliges fintech-licensed companies, outsourcing service providers and insurance companies to verify national ID data with the Civil Status Organization and mobile-number ownership with NTRA, without an accompanying one-time password (OTP): the fintech journey already sends two codes, at registration and at conclusion of the contract, and insurance companies are outside the OTP requirement.

Decision 133 of 2026 made two additions. It brought consumer finance companies, microfinance companies and the associations and NGOs licensed for microfinance into the enquiry obligation. For those two sectors alone, it requires an OTP bound to the enquiry and kept in an immutable record, proving the customer's presence at the moment of the enquiry, at conclusion of a new contract and at renewal; a financial transaction requires the OTP only, with no new enquiry. The OTP's reference ID travels inside the enquiry (PII) API call, binding each enquiry to one OTP event.

Chairman's Decision 2735 of 2026 (26 August 2026) requires the addressed entities to apply Decision 133 of 2026 within two months of its entry into force and to notify the Authority.

In-country hosting and the digital register

Decision 140 requires each digital platform to keep a digital register. Records are retained for at least five years after the digital asset's validity ends, and longer once litigation or arbitration is notified. The register proves chain of custody and prevents modification and repudiation. VLens hosts and stores data in Egypt, with asymmetric encryption and distributed-ledger storage.

VLens registration and operating figures

VLens is an FRA-approved digital identity engine. FRA Decision 1224 of 2024 (26 May 2024) registered it on the outsourcing register across all four fields, the first provider registered across all four. Chairman's Decision 2379 of 2026 (4 August 2026) renewed the registration, valid until 25 May 2027.

The engine has verified more than 4.1 million unique identities, adds more than 600,000 a month and handles roughly 900,000 to 1.1 million API requests a day. VLens operates in Egypt, Jordan and Libya. Its OTP service sends the code to the enquired-upon number and returns a retainable record of it.

Frequently asked questions