Thailand’s NDID partners with Mastercard to connect digital IDs internationally

National Digital ID (NDID), both Thailand’s national digital identity platform for financial institutions and a private company, announces that following a successful Phase 1 of verifying natural persons it will move on to verifying legal persons beginning in 2022 as well as verifying foreign identities, reports Business Today Chronicle, via machine translation. A partnership with Mastercard’s digital identity scheme for international connectivity has also been announced by NDID.

Company Chairman Pyong Srivanich, also president of Krungthai Bank, made the announcement, saying that in 2021 more than 9 million identity requests were made via NDID. The platform has more than 100 members which have 30 million users combined. It is used for private-sector services such as bank account opening and insurance, as well as government services such as electronic filing for taxes.

NDID has used regulatory sandboxes to implement interbanking processes to help standardize the service to build trust. This comes as Thailand’s digital economy grows five times faster than GDP and digital money transfer rates are soaring.

Adding verification of legal persons – against a database rather than a previously registered profile – as well as the identities of foreigners should allow the NDID service to grow and connect more services, the company says.

The chairman also said that a partnership with Mastercard will allow a joint exploration of connecting NDID with Mastercard’s digital identity platform, which could “open up a new dimension of digital ID service.” The connection is expected later this year.

Mr. Boonsun Prasitsumrit, Chief Executive Officer of National Digital ID Co., Ltd., Thailand revealed that NDID is studying the linkage between two platforms in several areas such as the technical aspect, contractual, legal, and regulatory aspects, as well as permission granting processes from regulatory bodies. The occasion marks the first time in the world where an MoU was signed to study cross-border digital ID, where some of APAC countries is expected to be the pilot market for bank account opening and mobile phone registration. The partnership will help create the innovation that will be beneficial and create ease of use and a good experience for the customers of both Mastercard and NDID.

“As we launch ID in countries around the world, our partners – merchants, airlines, banks, governments are integrating ID as a convenient, smart and secure way of on-boarding new users and interacting with existing ones to offer innovative products and services. Many of those providers operate in multiple jurisdictions or have legacy processes for authentication and identity verification. By bringing the user-base of NDID onto our network it means our partners can offer the same great experience regardless of whether the user is from Thailand or from any other country. They can be confident that they meet their regulatory obligations with the same high levels of assurance, trust and reliability. When digital identity issued in one country is accepted in another country, seamlessly and securely, it becomes a powerful driver of economic growth.” said Rajat Maheshwari, Vice President – Digital Identity at Mastercard.

Mastercard recently began providing digital identity services for North Macedonia’s national system.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  digital economy  |  digital ID  |  digital identity  |  financial services  |  government services  |  identity verification  |  Mastercard  |  National Digital ID (NDID)  |  Thailand