The Paypers has sat with Mark Heymann from Direct Transact to find more about the growth and importance of digital identity in today’s digitised financial world
What is digital identity and why is it becoming important?
Digital identity refers to the acceptable and trusted digital format of a person or company’s identity. Digital identity verification is becoming increasingly crucial for the onboarding of customers at banks, telcos, retailers/ e-tailers, and insurance companies as the world rapidly digitises right now. Big global retail trends like buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) are also fuelling the need for shopper identity verification.
In the process of digital identity verification, a person’s ID or passport, photos, company documents and address information can be verified against golden source (definitive) data and biometrics, and in some cases even their online activities and public records. The COVID pandemic has led to a massive boom in online transactions globally. The global digital payment market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 19.4% from 2021 to 2028 to reach a value of almost USD 240 billion by 2028, according to market research firm Grand View. With this also comes a huge spike in online fraud which is estimated to cost the global economy USD 5 trillion in losses in 2021, according to Stripe. Digital identity verification will continue to stop online transaction fraud in its tracks - and this is very important for the health of the global economy and the safety of consumers everywhere.
How does digital identity fit into the digital transformation picture?
The digital transformation of businesses is experiencing a quantum leap at the moment due to the shifts brought on by the COVID pandemic, whether it be related to the adoption of cloud computing, big data, ecommerce, more software, or app-based business management solutions, or moving workforces online. Within this context, the global payments ecosystem is believed to be experiencing five years worth of growth in just one year, according to McKinsey. Within this context, digital identity verification plays a vital role in safeguarding the entire global payments ecosystem, and all the billions of people who rely on it daily, against online financial crimes which unfortunately are also on the rise.
What are the current market needs and use cases for digital identity? Where do you see opportunities for the identity verification industry in the next few years?
The major drive within the market is to give customers a frictionless experience to consume services or buy products. For example, in China customers can buy groceries using their digital identity to pay for the goods in an unmanned retail store (Bingo Boxes). The European Commission also recently announced its plans to deliver a digital identity and wallet framework to its citizens in the next few years. They are urging member states and the private sector to collaborate on the delivery of its first identity verification toolbox by September 2022, as part of its greater mission to achieve an Open Finance and Open Data economy. Other countries will follow suit. As the world moves towards the universal adoption of digital identity, I see a major opportunity in the creation of digital identity distributed ledger technologies that will give individuals and companies the ability to have their own self-sovereign identity (SSI). SSI is a model for managing digital identities in which an individual or company has sole ownership and control of their accounts and personal data, which can be shared safely when transacting with a bank, telco, or retailer.
What role will digital identity play in the unfolding digital currency space going forward, in your opinion?
Digital identity will be used to onboard digital currency customers in the future. In fact, as most countries now move towards the launch of their own Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), it is expected that central banks the world over will require rock-solid digital identity verification of users to onboard users and stamp out illicit finance and bank disintermediation risks. The Financial Times wrote an in-depth report on it recently. Digital ID solutions will protect users against the abuse of personal data on the one hand while protecting the payment system against money laundering and financial crime on the other.
Do you agree that there is a race currently happening between payment leaders to find and offer the perfect digital identity solution and if so, why?
Yes, there certainly is a global race at the moment between payments providers to provide frictionless and customer-centric digital identity verification processes to enable faster, safer, slicker money flows for individuals and organisations.
Who is your target market for digital identities and how do you differ from your competitors?
Our simple and effective digital identity verification solutions are useful to a variety of industries, including telecommunication, financial services, retail, manufacturing, and agriculture businesses. They all handle online payments and therefore they are all vulnerable to fraud.
Most competitors focus on the workflow and onboarding processes for their customers and sell a full package solution to customers. We focus on giving our customers a Software as a Service (SaaS) model for digital identity verification at the intervention point, which means customers pay for the data they use at this intervention point, thus reducing costs. Customers only use what they need.
Please explain to me why the European Commission is moving so fast on digital identity now, and whether this is a global trend?
In Europe, they want to start connecting digital payment wallets to each citizen’s digital identity. The European Union has already established regulations regarding an e-ID in 2014 and multiple versions of the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). The EU has proposed to create a framework for a 'trusted and secure European e-ID' that will be available to all citizens, residents, and businesses to make it easier to use as a national digital identity to prove who they are in order to access public sector or commercial services regardless of where they are. The reason for the acceleration of the digital identity project, I believe, is to support the digital transformation process in key areas like payments, banking, and public sector services. This will become a worldwide trend.
Why are credit card companies investing in digital identity solutions?
Credit card companies have invested in payments and digital identity companies in order to solve a whole host of problems that have traditionally plagued the credit card payment ecosystem, from fraud to regulatory compliance issues.
A few examples:
Mastercard recently completed its acquisition of digital identity verifier Ekata for USD 850 million, apparently to create a safer, seamless way for consumers to prove who they say they are in the new digital economy and to enable greater financial inclusion for law-abiding citizens.
American Express recently boosted its fraud identification solution Accertify by collaborating with other online fraud prevention companies to help tackle ‘card-not-present fraud’. They believe merchants and card issuers need to share more data with each other at the moment an online purchase is happening to instantly identify and block fraudulent purchases.
In 2016 already, Visa acquired CardinalCommerce, a leading digital authentication company, to support their focus on accelerating the growth of digital payments and commerce, and to secure the next generation of payments be they via browsers, mobile apps, or connected devices.
I also believe digital identity verification will be crucial to the credit card companies when it comes to converting digital money, whether that be Bitcoin or CBDCs, into fiat currency - for instance, when someone pays for goods in a real shop using their credit card out of their digital currency account. Digital identity gives credit card companies the ability to enable the transferring of value using token-based money by transferring the token from one identity to another identity, for instance, if you’re giving an R20 digital bill to your friend.
About Mark Heymann
About Direct Transact
Direct Transact enables banking. The company provides cloud-based transaction processing infrastructure and related back-office processes to banks, retailers, and other businesses who want to launch the innovative payment and retail banking solutions in the market. Headquartered in South Africa, Direct Transact is aligned with the Payments Association of South Africa (PASA) and Bankserv to enable banks to participate in all payment streams. It is also a certified international third-party provider for both issuing and acquiring services for Visa and MasterCard, and fully PCI DSS compliant.
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