Eftpos, an Australian electronic payment system involving electronic funds transfers, has revealed its intention to enter the Australian digital identity market.

This move could set up a new utility platform for local financial institutions under pressure from the Reserve bank of Australia (RBA) to rein-in fraud and increase debit functionality. The RBA has been a strong advocate of the need for an Australian-issued digital ID credential in the financial services sector amid increasing online fraud losses coming from peoples’ bank accounts.

The new locally minted credential could be used for age verification in online transactions, including using phones with biometric functions, for purchases like liquor deliveries. For instance, an online retailer would be able to ask for age verification from an ID credential service with the consumer then able to select that service to trigger a biometric check.

The creation of a common, localised digital identity platform using existing infrastructure players is likely to be appealing to banks and other authorised deposit taking institutions because it would spare duplicated efforts and avoid a potential ‘rail gauge’ scenario for merchants accepting payments, according to ITnews.