Digital Identity Coalition Forms to Secure Remote Financial Onboarding

In a bold move to transform how financial institutions verify and onboard customers remotely, a new Digital Identity Coalition has been officially established. This alliance brings together leading fintech firms, KYC (Know Your Customer) providers, regulators, and policy advocates to tackle persistent identity fraud and enable secure, scalable onboarding for digital financial services.

The coalition’s mission centers on one key objective: strengthening digital trust. With more financial services moving online, verifying user identity remotely has become both a huge opportunity and a significant risk. Members of the coalition aim to set a global standard for reusable, privacy‑preserving digital identities that reduce friction for legitimate users and raise the bar on security.

Key Highlights

• Founding Members: The coalition convenes major players from the financial and identity-verification ecosystem, including fintech companies, identity‑tech providers, and regulatory experts. By pooling their resources, they aim to influence policy, drive innovation, and build infrastructure.

• Addressing Remote Onboarding Risks: Remote identity verification is vulnerable to fraud — especially with deepfakes and synthetic identities. The coalition will invest in cutting-edge, AI-resistant verification tools to defend against these advanced threats.

• Reusable Digital Identities: One of the coalition’s flagship initiatives is to develop an IdentityNet — a network of reusable digital identities. Coalition for Digital Identity+2Coalition for Digital Identity+2 Once a user is verified, their identity can be reused securely across multiple platforms without repeating the full onboarding process.

• Regulatory Advocacy: The group plans to engage with regulators and governments to help craft policies that balance security, innovation, and consumer privacy. They will push for frameworks that protect users while enabling financial services to onboard customers efficiently.

• Industry Research & Collaboration: Beyond policy, the coalition will sponsor research into emerging threats and technologies, host working groups, and build shared standards for digital identity.

• Global Reach: While based in major financial markets, the coalition has a global outlook. It seeks to support jurisdictions looking to scale digital onboarding securely and in ways that also enhance financial inclusion.

Why This Matters

The rise of digital financial services — from mobile banking to neobanks — means more users are being onboarded entirely online. But the convenience of digital onboarding comes with trade‑offs:

• Traditional KYC checks (such as in-person ID verification) aren’t scalable or cost-efficient.

• Legacy digital onboarding systems are increasingly targeted by fraudsters using synthetic identities or manipulated media.

• Regulatory complexity around identity verification varies significantly across markets.

By uniting under a coalition, stakeholders can collaborate on shared, interoperable solutions — rather than each company building its own siloed identity infrastructure. This, the coalition members argue, will reduce cost, improve security, and provide better customer experiences.

Strategic Goals & Roadmap

Technical Development

Build the IdentityNet for reusable identity credentials.

Develop advanced, AI‑resistant verification protocols.

Promote open standards for identity verification, allowing broad interoperability.

Policy Engagement

• Work with governments and regulators to develop frameworks around remote eKYC onboarding.

• Advocate for data privacy protections that give users control over which attributes of their identity are shared.

Encourage adoption of identity regulation that supports cross-border and cross-industry use.

• Research & Thought Leadership

• Commission independent research on digital identity fraud, especially in onboarding use cases.

• Organize working groups to define best practices for identity issuance, revocation, and lifecycle management.

• Publish reports and policy recommendations to guide both industry and regulators.

  Ecosystem Building

  • Grow coalition membership to include startups, governments, and non-profits.

  • Create industry forums to share insights, pilot joint projects, and scale IdentityNet adoption.

• Broader Context & Related Initiatives
• Digital identity coalitions and frameworks are gaining momentum worldwide. For instance, the Coalition for Digital Identity advocates for a privacy-first, reusable identity infrastructure that empowers businesses and individuals alike. Coalition for Digital Identity+2Coalition for Digital Identity+2
  Similarly, the Better Identity Coalition has long pressed for next-generation remote identity verification systems as part of its policy blueprint. The Better Identity Coalition
  These efforts highlight a growing acknowledgment across sectors: secure, user-centric digital identity is foundational to the future of finance.
• Quotes from Leadership
• “Remote onboarding is no longer a convenience — it’s a necessity,” said a spokesperson for the Digital Identity Coalition. “But it can only scale if we trust it. That trust comes from shared, robust infrastructure and industry-wide standards.”
• Another coalition member added, “By pooling our expertise, we can build a global IdentityNet that makes onboarding faster and safer — and gives users real control over their data.”
• The coalition is inviting financial institutions, fintechs, identity‑tech companies, regulators, and civil society organizations to join its mission. Membership options include working groups, standards committees, and advocacy initiatives.
• Organizations interested in contributing to this transformation are encouraged to reach out and help co‑create the future of remote identity verification.
• About the Coalition
• The Digital Identity Coalition is a multi-sector alliance dedicated to shaping secure, privacy-preserving systems for remote financial onboarding. Through its combined efforts in technology, policy, and research, the coalition seeks to make digital identity safer, reusable, and universally trusted — empowering both businesses and individuals.