ConnectID, Visa, ID.me illustrate central place digital ID plays in digital economy

Convenience is king, even in identity verification. Customers want to be able to prove their identity without constantly submitting the same data over and over again. Hence the appeal of bank ID systems such as ConnectID and Visa, which work on the principle that large institutions like banks already have most of the data people need to prove their identity.

In Australia and the U.S., these platforms are accumulating millions of users, and accelerating the mass market adoption of digital identity.

With Australia’s four big banks on board, ConnectID reaches 10M customers

Commonwealth Bank (CBA), National Australia Bank (NAB), ANZ and Westpac – the four biggest banks in Australia – have signed onto ConnectID’s digital identity service, offering it to more than 10 million customers, according to a company release.

ConnectID, an initiative of Australian Payments Plus (AP+), is digital identity exchange that serves as “a bridge between trusted Identity Providers (such as banks) and the business requesting the information.”

“Most of the data people frequently need to share, when buying something online or signing up for a new service, is already stored by these large institutions, and with ConnectID this can be reused to verify themselves as they interact online.”

Andrew Black, Managing Director of ConnectID at AP+, emphasises the significance of the country’s major banks’ support for digital ID. “ConnectID represents a game-changer for individuals who want more control over their data. Our solution empowers people to verify their identity securely without oversharing, and the support of the big four banks offering millions of Australians a trusted and seamless way to use digital identity is vital.”

The presumptive appeal on both ends of a bank ID transaction is not hard to understand.

For customers, only having to have one place that stores their data, which they can point to when others ask for identity verification, reduces the need to create endless account sign-ins.

Businesses will see “a reduced need to request, manage, or store critical information from consumers.” In retail, real estate, human resources and other sectors, this means reduced risk.

Visa makes the case for payments-based identity verification

Like banks, major credit cards and payments providers are already large, trusted holders of personal data. A new white paper from Visa has insights on the place digital payments occupy in the digital identity verification ecosystem, and on the issue of data collection in particular.

Trust, Visa says, is built with “high quality user experiences, strong consent frameworks, and an expectation that digital identities and the associated data are protected at the highest security level.”

It highlights the role of biometrics, and the challenges that come with it. “Biometric information is often used in digital transactions to identify or authenticate a person in a convenient way. However, due to the sensitivity of biometric information, care must be taken on how it is used, stored and shared.”

Governments will “therefore need to consider their approach to using biometrics as a mechanism to validate identity attributes, the pros and cons of centralized versus decentralized biometric storage design, and what data is required when and by whom.”

Payments systems offer an established digital gateway to identity verification, and are often early adopters of emerging technology. Visa points to the potential in FIDO passkeys and its own Payment Passkeys program, which “may help facilitate a mutually reinforcing relationship between payments and digital identity that could benefit all stakeholders and end-users.”

ID.me says pre-verified users to account for 80% of ID verifications in 2025

With more than 135 million users enrolled in its digital wallet program, ID.me has likewise seen impressive uptake in the U.S., notably in its pre-verification program.

A blog feature published in late 2024 says “almost two-thirds of ID.me users now take advantage of ID.me’s digital fast lane to verify their identity by simply signing in and providing consent to quickly access benefits and services.”

Pre-verifications have grown 31 percent since Q3 2024, in which time ID.me issued 5.1 million new pre-verified subscriptions, “allowing users to access or renew their relationship with an agency simply by signing in and providing consent.” The organization expects pre-verified users to account for 80 percent of all identity verifications in 2025.

Digital divide remains, but digital ID aims to shrink it

The World Bank says that as of February 2023, 850 million people globally still did not have an official identification. Many more don’t have a digital ID, potentially limiting their access to government and financial services as society digitizes. The implications are wide-ranging, from access to education to healthcare to elections.

Both the bank ID and payments provider ID verification approaches emphasize the need to address the digital divide that exists for people who, in the phrasing of ID.me, “do not have a presence in authoritative records” – in the U.S., a disproportionate number of which are low-income. ID.me’s answer to the problem is to offer a secure video chat option for remote identity proofing.

Visa’s paper, meanwhile, argues that partnership with the private sector is a key to success for digital identity systems, “since the private sector can provide the useful and frequent use cases needed to help build trust in and adoption of the systems.”

Quark ID’s deployment in Buenos Aires govt app

QuarkID is the blockchain-based self-sovereign identity (SSI) protocol and digital trust framework that the city of Buenos Aires has integrated into its digital identity app. Results there point to how integration into existing trusted entities can drive adoption.

An initial launch last February through a self-custodial identity wallet app struggled with uptake. But according to an interview with Quark ID co-founder Diego Fernandez on Trinsic’s “The Future of Identity” podcast, more than 200,000 people signed up within 40 days of the rollout through government technology.

Fernandez references his 85-year-old mother, who calls him every time she has to download an app, wondering why she has to keep repeating the same process. He says there’s no chance she’s going to be able to obtain a digital ID by providing biometrics, logging into various apps and platforms, and so on.

Now, the QuarkID protocol presents two options: the open source QuarkID wallet, or the government application, which will enable some 3.6 million users of the city government’s miBA platform to have a decentralized digital identity (DID).

The Digital Public Goods Alliance has officially recognized QuarkID as a verified digital public good as an open-source project contributing to progress on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Article Topics

connectID  |  digital economy  |  digital ID  |  financial services  |  ID.me  |  identity management  |  identity verification  |  QuarkID  |  real estate  |  Visa