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Good practice Imported

BIEN — Honduras Merges Four Government Credentials Into One Biometric Digital Wallet, ~100,000 Downloads In

Honduras · Tegucigalpa · See the Honduras profile · See the Tegucigalpa profile

Evidence: Descriptive / self-reported Top 74% 47/100 · Ask Evidence Copilot about this practice

Honduras's RNP launched BIEN, a wallet holding the biometric national ID, driver's licence, firearm permit and foreign-residence card under one biometric login instead of separate re-verification. Gazetted with full legal validity in July 2026; ~100,000 downloads in week one.

~100,000 downloads
App downloads in first week after legal-validity announcement (week of 17 July 2026)
BIEN — Honduras Merges Four Government Credentials Into One Biometric Digital Wallet, ~100,000 Downloads In

Details

Maturity
Scaling
Promoter
Registro Nacional de las Personas (RNP), with DIGER, DNVT, Policía Nacional and Secretaría de Seguridad
Period
2025–2026
Keywords
digital identity, biometrics, public administration, e-government

Context

BIEN (Billetera Electrónica Nacional) is Honduras's government digital wallet app, built by the Registro Nacional de las Personas (RNP) with the Dirección General de Información y Gobierno Electrónico (DIGER).

Objectives

It stores the biometric national ID (DNI biométrico) alongside credentials issued by other agencies — a driving licence from the Dirección Nacional de Vialidad y Transporte, a firearm carry permit, and a foreign-residence card — so citizens present one digitally signed credential instead of re-verifying their identity separately at each institution.

Activities

The wallet's legal basis was published in the official gazette, Diario Oficial La Gaceta, edition 37,196, Section B, on 17 July 2026, giving the digital DNI full legal validity nationwide; the Policía Nacional and the Secretaría de Seguridad separately instructed officers to accept it at checkpoints in place of the physical card. Biometric matching runs on TECH5's Digital Public Infrastructure stack (T5-OmniMatch for matching, T5-AirSnap for capture).

Results

Roughly 100,000 downloads were recorded in the week following the July 2026 legal-validity announcement, according to Honduran press coverage — the only adoption figure published so far.

Conclusions

No data has yet been released on transaction volumes, fraud reduction, or usage among citizens without smartphones; TECH5 describes the Honduras rollout as 'a replicable model for Latin America,' a claim from the platform supplier rather than an independent evaluation.

Implementation
Indicative cost
Medium (€50k–€500k) — No public cost figures were found; conservatively banded medium for a vendor-supplied (TECH5) national biometric digital-wallet platform integrating four credential types.
Time to results
Short (< 1 year) — Gazetted with full legal validity in July 2026, with adoption data covering only the first week; banded short given the very recent launch.
Staffing & skills
Registro Nacional de las Personas (RNP) and DIGER technical teams, Dirección Nacional de Vialidad y Transporte, Policía Nacional and Secretaría de Seguridad as credential-issuing/accepting agencies

Conditions for success

  • Formal legal gazetting (Diario Oficial La Gaceta) giving the digital ID full legal validity nationwide
  • Explicit instructions to police and security agencies to accept the digital credential at checkpoints

Common failure modes

  • Only one adoption figure (downloads) has been published, with no data on transaction volumes, fraud reduction, or outcomes
  • No published data on usage among citizens without smartphones, a potential access gap
  • No independent audit of data-protection safeguards for the consolidated biometric profile, which includes sensitive credentials such as firearm permits alongside the national ID
  • The vendor's 'replicable model for Latin America' claim has not been independently evaluated

Where it fits

Governance type
national civil registry with multi-agency legal and security-sector coordination
Scale
national digital identity wallet
Income level
lower-middle-income

Commonly funded by

National / regional programmes

Indicative funding routes for practices of this type — always check each programme's current calls and eligibility rules.

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Data sources

Where this practice's information was retrieved from, and when.

Attachments

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