A coalition of leading financial institutions and technology companies, led by the UK's Centre for Finance and Innovation Technology, has worked to design a digital company ID to make securing finance and conducting day-to-day business quicker and less vulnerable to fraud.
The coalition’s proposed model would empower the finance sector and CFIT to create a working prototype, in the form of a virtual passport, for UK businesses.
Over seventy organisations are participating in the work, including proof of concept partners Lloyds Bank, NatWest Group and Monzo, alongside the likes of Mastercard, Companies House, Barclays, Santander, HSBC, Virgin Money, Moody’s, A&O Shearman, Dun & Bradstreet, CRIF, Ernst & Young, Experian, GLEIF, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, OneID, Revolut, Visa and Yoti; as well as regulators such as the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Payment Systems Regulator (PSR).
Research undertaken by the coalition since its launch has indicated that widespread adoption of a digital company ID would help prevent fraud, boost efficiencies for banks and other financial institutions by saving them time, reduce financial services compliance costs and enable the creation of a secure smart-data economy.
This work is supported by The Chancellor who, in her new National Payments Vision that was published in November, welcomed the work of CFIT and its coalition partners to "explore the potential of digital verification solutions to combat economic crime” and pledged to “consider any findings that emerge from CFIT’s work in due course".
CFIT Chair, Charlotte Crosswell says the coalition will announce the outputs, recommendations and next steps for its programme in March 2025.
“Economic crime remains a major threat to the UK's economic security, and has a profoundly distressing impact on consumers and businesses," she says. "At CFIT, we are committed to addressing this and making the financial services industry more robust against fraud. The dynamic elements of Smart Data and Digital ID, along with cross sector interoperability, have been key to the success of the coalition to date and demonstrate a further milestone in CFIT's mission to boost economic growth through financial innovation.”