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The value of digital identity to the financial service sector
The value of digital identity to the financial service sector
Digitisation of services brings great benefits to customers: immediacy and convenience, access to new services, greater choice and market competitiveness. It also brings concerns and fears: it can create barriers to entry and a lack of inclusion, along with the threat of data breaches, misuse of personal information, identity theft, fraud, and sometimes financial loss.
These concerns could undermine customers’ confidence and patience in using services online. They are challenges for the banking and wider finance industry to address and overcome. One root problem to these concerns and challenges is that of identity. How can we provide an understandable, convenient, safe and trusted solution to manage and protect our identities online?
The UK market for identity solutions to meet these requirements is highly fragmented. The financial services industry is highly regulated when it comes to identity requirements and it is recognised there is a need to embrace innovation in this area.
In May 2016, the UK government formally launched their new digital identity program, GOV.UK Verify. It aims to provide a safe, simple and secure means of citizens proving that they are who they say they are when transacting online with government services. This service currently has 1 million users, with an ambition to scale to 25 million users by 2020.
Both the government and the private sector believe that the market place for identity should not be sector specific and that economies of scale could be reached through the reuse of a trusted citizen digital identity, driving down the cost of identity for the UK as a whole.
This report focuses on the challenges faced in enabling trusted online transactions within the financial service sector, and explores whether digital identity reuse offers a solution.