Zimbabwe’s Flex ID and Sri Lanka’s National Savings Bank Launch First South Asia’s Self Sovereign Identity (SSID) Solution

The National Savings Bank (NSB), which is one of Sri Lanka’s leading financial services providers, and the third-largest bank in the country, has unveiled an innovative blockchain-based solution for its customers called the Self Sovereign Identity (SSID).

The SSID was developed and is powered by FlexID, a layer 2 network blockchain solution built atop the Algorand blockchain. This solution is reportedly the first of its kind in South Asia and aims to provide a more secure and efficient method for identity verification.

Funded by Algorand in 2022, Flex ID by Zimbabwe’s Victor Mapunga is creating a self-sovereign identity platform which is a digital identity network to address the problem of many poor people around the world lacking identification and consequently being cut off from many services including financial services.

“Our focus is to provide a solution to bank the unbanked population of the world which stands at over 2.1 billion. We are excited to work with NSB, PayMedia, and Bridge to launch the first SSID solution in South Asia, in Sri Lanka,” said FlexID Director/COO Sanjay Mendis

By implementing the SSID solution, NSB is set to gain numerous advantages such as providing its customers with an improved digital experience, reducing costs, and enabling interoperability with the latest web 3.0 technology products and services. Additionally, after deploying the solution, NSB will be able to have a unified view of customer identities across all the products and services it provides simplifying the process of e-KYC-based onboarding and verification.


According to the Sri Lankan bank’s CIO, Amal Illesinghe, the move is aligned with its positioning as a forward-thinking bank that puts customers’ satisfaction and banking experience first.

“At NSB, we are delighted to have been the first financial institution in South Asia to implement an SSID solution that enables us to provide top of the range e-KYC services for our customers across online and offline channels.”

For Flex ID, the move comes after the launch of an ‘integrated digital identity and remittance platform’ in partnership with South Africa’s Uhuru Wallet targeting millions of Zimbabwean immigrants residing in South Africa.

The startup has also indicated in the past that it is building what is a decentralized marketplace of people. In this marketplace, each person is seen as an API (application programming interface) where they can communicate with different services.

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