Digital identity market poised for massive growth, but not in the US

If a new industry research paper is correct, digital ID apps are going to boom.

Juniper Research says the 2.3 billion digital identity apps being used globally this year will soar to more than 4.1 billion in four years. The impetus, according to the report, will be governments replacing physical documents with third-party applications.

Those third-party players are financial service companies and banks, as they try to keep up with new KYC rules and the rise in identity theft.

The only real threat to the dominance of ID apps will be digital wallets, primarily because that software combines identity and payment services.

At the same time, the death-grip consumers and employers have on passwords might finally be releasing. Juniper researchers say that over the next four years the global market will being adopting in meaningful numbers a zero-trust model incorporating biometric verification and multi-factor authentication.

That verification method is exploding, too.

According to a Juniper blog post, verification is playing a major role in the digital ID market. Spending on related products and services, will rocket from $9 billion globally in 2021 to $16 billion in 2026.

Digital identity vendors will watch their combined revenue grow from $26 billion in 2021 to $53 billion in 2026.

Not a lot of that revenue, apparently, will be coming from the United States market, according to Juniper. Just seven percent of global digital identity revenue in 2026 will start with a U.S. handshake.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  digital identity  |  digital wallets  |  identity verification  |  Juniper Research  |  KYC  |  market report