  We address the flavour problem by incorporating the hypothesis of universal
strength of Yukawa couplings in the framework of a 5D GUT model compactified on
an $S^1/(Z_2 \times Z_2^{\prime})$ orbifold. We show that a quantitatively
successful picture of fermion masses and mixings emerges from the interplay
between the bulk suppression factors of geometric origin and the phases of the
Yukawa matrices. We give an explicit example, where we obtain a good fit for
both the CKM and PMNS matrices.
