Business news

Digital Identity Coalition Forms to Secure Remote Financial Onboarding

Digital Identity Coalition Launches to Secure Remote Financial Onboarding and Cut Fraud Losses

A dozen leading banks, fintech platforms and identity-verification vendors today announced formation of the Digital Identity Coalition, a nonprofit consortium dedicated to creating an open, interoperable framework for verifying consumers and businesses opening accounts online. The group’s first deliverable—an industry-wide “Remote Onboarding Trust Mark” backed by biometric checks and real-time government data—will be released for public comment in Q1 2026.

Remote account opening has become the dominant channel for new relationships: 78 % of U.S. checking accounts opened in 2024 were started on a phone or laptop, according to the Coalition’s inaugural “State of Secure Onboarding” report. Yet the same convenience has fueled a surge in synthetic-identity fraud, which the Federal Reserve estimates cost banks $1.8 billion last year alone. “The current patchwork of proprietary checks forces consumers to upload the same document five different ways and still leaves institutions guessing,” said Karen Liu, Coalition chair and chief risk officer at Meridian One Bank. “We are pooling data, governance and technology so ‘verify once, use everywhere’ becomes reality.”

Early pilots show measurable gains. A proof-of-concept run this summer by the U.K.-based Digital Verification Coalition found that a shared Digital Company ID cut business-onboarding time 60 %, lowered bank KYB costs >50 % and reduced customer drop-offs 33 %

. The new U.S. group will adapt those metrics for consumer wallets, small-business portals and commercial lending platforms.

The Coalition’s technical blueprint aligns with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Mobile Driver’s License project and incorporates ISO/IEC 18013-5 mobile-ID standards already adopted by Apple and Google wallets. “By binding a government-issued credential to on-device biometrics and then tokenizing the result, we can deliver IAL-3 assurance without forcing applicants to visit a branch,” said Dr. Roy Austin, former NIST adviser and newly appointed chief technology officer of the Coalition.

Market impact could be swift. McKinsey projects that fully interoperable digital-ID networks could unlock 3 % of GDP in value across OECD countries by 2030 through faster lending, lower compliance expense and expanded access to credit. The Coalition will tackle three pain points first:

Synthetic identity detection via shared negative-data signals.
Document liveness checks that defeat deep-fake uploads.
Inclusion by accepting state mobile driver’s licenses, U.S. Postal Service address validation and tribal nation IDs.

“Remote onboarding is no longer a nice-to-have—it is the front door to the financial system,” said Coalition CEO Alejandra Solano. “Our members represent 42 % of U.S. retail deposit accounts and serve 38 million under-banked customers. When we raise the security floor, the entire economy stands taller.”

The group will submit its draft framework to the Treasury Department’s Office of Cyber-security and Critical Infrastructure Protection and to the CFPB in February, ahead of expected federal rule-making on digital identity in 2026.

About the Digital Identity Coalition
Launched in November 2025, the Digital Identity Coalition is a 501(c)(6) organization whose mission is to create open, inclusive standards that make remote financial onboarding faster, safer and more equitable. Members include Meridian One Bank, Plaid, Jumio, Trulioo, Equifax, Onfido, Petal, Chime, Aspen Institute Financial Security Program, Alliance for Innovative Regulation and Venable LLP.