Civic Anchor
Pan-African civic identity infrastructure

The verifiable identity layer for Africa.

Civic Anchor gives every African institution one place to verify who — and what — it is dealing with: a universal identity substrate, the marketplace that runs on top of it, and the standards beneath. No raw biometric data is ever stored.

How Civic Anchor is built

  • Raw biometrics never stored

    Verification runs on a privacy-preserving template bound to the holder’s device. No raw biometric data lives on our infrastructure — anywhere, in any jurisdiction.

  • Credentials the holder carries

    Identity, residency, and reputation are portable verifiable credentials the subject controls — presentable, revocable, and recognised across institutions and borders.

  • Built jurisdiction by jurisdiction

    Each country operates under its own data-protection framework and regulator. The substrate is continental; the compliance is local — by construction, not by exception.

The platform

Four reinforcing layers.

Each layer earns its own revenue, and each makes the one above it harder to dislodge. Built bottom-up — identity first, standards last.

  1. 01

    Identity substrate

    A universal anchor for verified subjects — people, businesses, assets, and skills — each cryptographically bound to a controllable DID. The graph compounds with every credential issued and cannot be re-created elsewhere.

  2. 02

    Verification marketplace

    Every institution that touches a verified subject — a bank at onboarding, a telco at SIM registration, an employer at hire, a border post at entry — verifies against the anchor per request, with the subject’s consent.

  3. 03

    Trust-priced data

    On top of the verification log sit the products institutions actually buy: credit and trade-reputation signals, AML and sanctions screening, and workforce verification — priced to the trust they carry.

  4. 04

    Standard-setting

    The Foundation publishes the reference specifications for cross-border digital identity — the documents AfCFTA, the AU, and the regional blocs cite. The standard becomes the moat.

Footprint

Continental by design, local by obligation.

We open one jurisdiction at a time — each with its own legal entity, regulator relationship, and data-protection commitments — sequenced from Southern Africa outward along the AfCFTA priority corridors.

ZAOperating

South Africa

ZWOnboarding partners

Zimbabwe

SADCNext

Southern Africa

EAC · ECOWASRoadmap

East & West Africa

AfCFTA priority corridor: Nigeria · Kenya · Ghana · Egypt · Ethiopia · Morocco · Tanzania · Senegal · Rwanda · Zimbabwe · Botswana · Namibia.

For institutions

Verify once. Recognise everywhere.

Onboard a verified subject in seconds against a credential they already carry — with their consent, billed per verification, and recorded in a tamper-evident audit log. No document re-collection, no shared biometric database.

Institution portal
  • Banks & PSPs

    FICA/KYC onboarding, AML and sanctions screening, and re-verification — without re-collecting documents.

  • Telcos

    SIM-registration identity at scale, reusable across the subscriber relationship.

  • Employers & platforms

    Verified workforce identity, qualifications, and clearance — portable between jobs.

  • Government & customs

    Residency, clearance, and trader identity for entitlement, enrolment, and cross-border trade.

Build on the identity layer for Africa.

Whether you’re a bank, a telco, a government body, or a regional regulator — start the conversation about verifying against Civic Anchor in your market.

Talk to us