NZBN to be critical piece of trusted digital infrastructure in New Zealand

New Zealand is preparing to retool its business number, the National Business Names (NZBN), as a verifiable credential, to position it for a greater role in the country’s rapid digital transformation efforts.

A post from GS1 New Zealand explains that NZBNs are “globally unique identifiers allocated, or available to be allocated, to every business in New Zealand” as a 13-digit Global Location Number (GLN) sourced from GS1 New Zealand. The Ministry for Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) reportedly “sees the NZBN standard becoming a critical piece of trusted digital infrastructure for transactions across the economy – a widely-recognised key for identity verification of every business or agency, and for assurance around the safety of information exchanges and financial transactions between them.”

The way to get there is through digital credentials. MBIE is developing the NZBN digital credential to be a cryptographically signed, secure and tamper proof ID that can live on a mobile device, applicable for a range of use cases. The promise is “rapid access to verified data, avoidance of duplication in information exchanges, pre-population of forms and surveys, and much more.”

GS1 New Zealand, part of the global, non-profit GS1 standards organisation, is looking to support the use of NZBNs in the context of the new National Digital Trust Infrastructure under the Digital Identity Services Trust Framework Act, with the purpose of establishing trust in New Zealand’s digital identity environment. The Act governs accredited trust framework providers that offer digital identity services. GS1 NZ sees NZBNs as the “trust anchor” in the equation.

New Zealand ‘doing awesome’ in digitalization

Christopher Goh is an international advisor on digital identity and verifiable credentials in Australia. In a post on LinkedIn, Goh lauds New Zealand’s efforts, saying the country is “doing awesome” in its move to make NZBNs into a credential. He recounts observing New Zealand’s Verifier App verify digital identities from France, the Netherlands, Atlanta, Colorado, California, Queensland and New South Wales. “The power of the verifiable credential,” he says, “means a 52kb file dropped into a trust list in New Zealand allows a whole jurisdiction to verify their identities and credential both to government but also private sector services in seconds.”

Goh notes the country’s plan to launch an ISO compliant wallet and credentials in 2026, and also remarks on parallel progress in Queensland and New South Wales.

“Worldwide, there is no doubt there is a switch to verifiable credentials. 2026 is the year of the VC.”

Article Topics

digital company ID  |  digital identity  |  identity verification  |  KYB  |  New Zealand  |  verifiable credentials