Synergies between pass providers, tech companies and governments needed to open borders: Jiten Vyas
IN 2019, VFS Global processed 30 million visa biometric enrolments across 144 countries. In 2020, that number plummeted by 70% and it would have been much worse without the first three months when there was still travel, before the pandemic was declared.
As for 2021, Jiten Vyas, regional group COO of the outsourcing and technology services specialist for governments and diplomatic missions, is not hazarding a guess except to say “for certain markets, for business and leisure, we are seeing green shoots and we may see an increase sometime middle or back end of the year”.
Sitting in Dubai, where life is pretty much back to normal with a robust vaccination rollout programme across the UAE, Vyas, who’s been with VFS Global since 2001, is spearheading the diversification of the 20-year-old company into the area of health passports.
In March, it partnered with Accredify, the Singapore-based digital credentials organisation, to issue its HealthCert to travel to Singapore in a pilot, and the service is to be extended to other locations such as Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam in the coming months.
Vyas said it was also in active discussions with IATA (International Air Transport Association) as well as the WTTC (World Travel & Tourism Council) on how it can lend its services to the process of health passports. “The essence of what we want to do in this area is how best can we make the traveller more comfortable, the process less cumbersome, to enable governments to verify the authenticity of the vaccinated and tested individual, and to give them the tools to validate at the borders,” said Vyas.
With health passports becoming the means by which countries will open borders, it makes sense that VFS Global would leverage on its existing infrastructure and technology and its relationships with governments worldwide. It has 3,500 Application Centres, operations in 144 countries across five continents and, as of February 28, 2021, over 228 million applications processed since inception in 2001. Previously part of the Kuoni group, it is now owned by private equity in Sweden and Switzerland.
Vyas said, “From an organisational standpoint, we are pioneers in government-public sector outsourcing. Collaboration between governments is on the rise and more and more governments are adopting the use of tech for passports for vaccinated and PCR testing.”
“Over the next few months, we are going to need a lot of synergies between pass providers, tech companies and governments to open up borders. Every government is keen to ensure their borders open, that trade and economy, and movement of people is facilitated but there’s always that fear – am I letting the right people in, with the right data sets, is he vaccinated, is it authentic, is it the right PCR test, is the certificate genuine?
“Governments and airlines need a digital tool they can rely on and it’s not only important for the traveller to be allowed in, but also when I am in the country, is there a tool to verify that as well?
“This will not only support travel but also events which have opened in Dubai and are opening up in Singapore.”
Vyas said the good thing is governments have been more open to adopting tech in the last decade to digitise their processes and customers, during Covid, have also become more comfortable with digital processes and solutions.
In its “Project Restart” to address the impact of Covid on its business, it introduced several initiatives including biometric enrolment and ‘visa at your doorstep’ service where a security-cleared staff shows up at the door to enrol the traveller. “We have seen business travellers, students and the VFR market welcoming these tools.”
He added that more governments are also looking at e-visas as a consequence of Covid, for both economic and health reasons. “Governments want solutions that help reduce the costs and burdens on consul staff and solutions with minimum touchpoints and with verification tools for the end-to-end traveller journey.
“In the last three to four years, the use of tech has been widely accepted by governments who recognise that going digital is a good idea from a cost, security, integrity and efficiency perspective.”
While he acknowledges the current proliferation of health passports, he said, “Time will narrow it down to those that are efficient, serve the purpose of the traveller and government institutions, and enable the resumption of global travel.”
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