Self-sovereign identity could present major revenue opportunity for financial institutions

Self-sovereign identity (SSI) presents financial institutions with a major revenue opportunity, according to a new report from Mercator Advisory Group, which details implementations and suppliers developing SSI technologies. Financial institutions could leverage decentralized ID and SSI to monetize their customer authentication processes and data without compromising data security, according to the announcement, and the report is intended to help organizations choose between rival implementations.

The “Distributed and Self-Sovereign Identity Solutions: Part 2” report follows on part 1, which was released in August, and provided an overview of approaches such as Secure DNS, decentralized IDs, and self-sovereign identity, which it notes is being adopted as an identity and authentication model by IBM, Microsoft, and Mastercard.

“Self-sovereign identity (SSI) is a major business opportunity, one that places financial institutions back at the center of their customers’ lives and provides value beyond simple deposit, transaction, and lending services. Even better, this position is highly defensible since, once customers have selected a solution, network effects will make it very difficult for them to switch,” comments Mercator Advisory Group VP of Payments Innovation and Director of Emerging Technologies Advisory Service Tim Sloane, who authored the report.

The report examines government implementations currently in operation, profiles Evernym, Hyperledger Indy, and Sovrin Foundation: Weaving SSI, and details market participants and ecosystem players including major financial, insurance, and technology companies, as well as the Linux foundation, iRespond and Veridium.

Evernym, iRespond, and Veridium representatives discussed the potential role of biometrics in SSI with Biometric Update at the recent Internet Identity Workshop (IIW) XXIX in Mountain View.

Article Topics

authentication  |  biometrics  |  data protection  |  digital identity  |  financial services  |  iRespond  |  Mercator Advisory Group  |  self-sovereign identity  |  Veridium