Opening speech at the National Australia Bank roundtable

On March 3th at noon Japan time, I gave the opening address at the National Australia Bank Corporate Digital ID Roundtable. National Australia Bank (NAB) is the largest city bank in Australia.

Program

The Corporate Digital ID Roundtable program is as follows:

Corporate ID in a nutshell

1. What is the purpose and benefits of Corporate Digital ID?
2. What are the current pain points for ID&V for corporate entities?
3. What are the similar and unique challenges for Corporate Digital ID vis-a-vis Individual Digital ID?  
4. Is a common framework linking Individual Digital ID and Corporate Digital ID necessary/desirable? Why/Why not?

Spotlight on the Global LEI systems (as a potential global and interoperable framework for Corporate Digital ID)

1. What are the origins of the GLEI, how does it operate and what is its purpose?
2. What are the key adoption challenges and opportunities?
3. A role for global standards?
4. What's needed for success?

Industry / Government / Cross-border collaboration and partnerships

1. What is the role of Government/Industry in Corporate Digital ID ecosystems (how does this differ from Individual Digital ID)?
2. What are the opportunities for industry collaboration, public-private partnerships?
3. What are the opportunities for cross border co-operation to promote adoption and interoperability of corporate digital ID systems like the GLEI system?
4. How do we ensure interoperability, accommodate within the broader framework of Digital ID in Australia where this is warranted/desirable

Conclusion and next steps

Company ID Overview

1. What are the goals and benefits of enterprise digital IDs?
2. What are the current pain points in enterprise ID&V?
3. What are the similarities between personal and corporate digital IDs, and what are their unique challenges?
4. Is a common framework for bridging personal and enterprise digital identities necessary/desirable? Why/why not?

Spotlight on the Global LEI System (as a potential global, interoperable framework for corporate digital ID)

1. What are the origins, operation and purpose of GLEI?
2. What are the key implementation challenges and opportunities?
3. What is the role of global standards?
4. What do you need to succeed?

Industry/Government/Cross-border collaboration and partnerships

1. What is the role of government/industry in the enterprise digital ID ecosystem (as opposed to personal digital ID)?
2. What are the opportunities for industry collaboration and public-private partnerships?
3. What are the opportunities for cross-border collaboration to promote the adoption and interoperability of enterprise digital ID systems such as the GLEI system?
4. How will interoperability be ensured and, if so, is interoperability guaranteed/desired within the broader framework of digital identity in Australia?

Background literature

Background material for this roundtable includes the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) paper " Corporate digital identity: no silver bullet, but a silver liningwas specified. Douglas Arner also participated in this roundtable.

speech

In response to this, I gave the following speech as my opening address (the Japanese translation follows):

Introduction:

Thank you for the introduction and thank you for inviting me to this roundtable. It is my honor to be with you all. Let me provide a few remarks on Corporate Digital Identity. 

Corporate digital identity, or corporate ID, has the potential to dramatically simplify the identification and verification of companies, reducing the risks and costs of doing business. It can act as an admission ticket for companies to access financial services more efficiently. But developing effective corporate ID systems requires addressing several key challenges. I have enumerated seven of them for today. 

Key points:

1. Corporate ID is more complex than individual ID. A company's attributes like directors and ownership structure can change frequently and span multiple jurisdictions. Identifying ultimate beneficial owners is a particular challenge. 
2. Company registries play a foundational role as the authoritative source of core company data. But many registries need to enhance data openness, quality, depth and connectivity to better support corporate ID. Often, data do not get updated in a timely manner and we would be looking at stale data. 
3. With Bank-related initiatives: Banks have an opportunity to monetise their KYC investments by providing corporate ID services, thus turning a cost center into a profit center. The Open Digital Trust Initiative, jointly launched by the Institute of International Finance and the OpenID Foundation is such an initiative, but face obstacles around cost, data sharing, liability and competition. KYC utilities offer potential but have seen mixed results so far.
4. The Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) provides a global, unique, and interoperable identifier as a starting point for corporate ID. Enhancements like the verifiable LEI and LEI embedded in digital certificates could expand benefits and adoption. However, coverage of the registered companies is yet to be improved. Also, vLEI being built on a completely different technical stack than other verifiable credentials systems may pose adoption challenges. 
5. OpenID, an open standard and decentralized authentication protocol, and its extension “OpenID for Identity Assurance”, which expresses the provenance and quality of the attributes, have significant potential for enabling secure and trusted identity assurance and data sharing between companies and service providers. The Global Assured Identity Network (GAIN) initiative aims to build on banks' existing KYC processes and the OpenID standard to create a global, interoperable corporate ID and authentication system. It is like building bridges among islands of ecosystems. Interoperability among different ecosystems has been demonstrated through a technical proof of concept, which was led by Dima Postonikov in the Sydney room, but business and operational reality must catch up before it becomes ready to take off. 
6. Decentralized identifiers and verifiable credential models, sometimes built on blockchain, aim to give companies more control over their data while enabling trusted data sharing. However, significant infrastructure investment and maturity are still needed. 
7. Some governments are proactively developing corporate ID infrastructure as a public good, such as the account aggregator framework in India which empowers SMEs to digitally share their data for better access to finance. While it has found tractions in these economies, whether the pattern will propagate to other parts of the world is yet to be determined. 

Conclusion:

In summary, corporate ID is progressing but remains fragmented today. There is no silver bullet – a range of stakeholders including registries, banks, service providers and policymakers have important roles to play. Enhancements to the LEI system, OpenID-based initiatives like GAIN, decentralized identity standards, and public infrastructure could help accelerate the development of a trusted and inclusive corporate ID ecosystem supporting improved financial stability, integrity, and access. Political will and multi-stakeholder coordination is essential to realizing the full potential.

I am hopeful that I will find hints to some of the key challenges that I have cited in today's roundtable.  

The following is an automatic translation.

Introduction:

Thank you for inviting me to this roundtable. It's an honor to be with you all. I'd like to say a few words about corporate digital identity.

Corporate digital identity, or enterprise ID, has the potential to dramatically simplify identification and verification for companies, reducing the risks and costs of doing business. It can also serve as an entrance ticket for companies to use financial services more efficiently. But developing an effective enterprise ID system requires addressing several key challenges. Today, we’ve listed seven of them.

Key Point

1. Corporate IDs are more complicated than personal IDsCorporate attributes such as officers and ownership structures change frequently and may span multiple jurisdictions, making identifying ultimate beneficial owners particularly challenging.
2. Company Registry"The registries play a core foundational role as authoritative sources of corporate data. However, many registries need to strengthen the openness, quality, depth, and connectivity of their data to better support corporate identity. In many cases, data is not updated in a timely manner, resulting in us seeing outdated data."
3. Banking Initiatives By offering enterprise identity services, banks have an opportunity to monetize their KYC investments and turn a cost center into a profit center. The Open Digital Trust Initiative, jointly launched by the Institute of International Finance and the OpenID Foundation, is one such initiative, but it faces obstacles in terms of cost, data sharing, accountability, and competition. KYC utilities have potential, but so far the results have been mixed.
4. Legal Entity Identifier (LEI)vLEI provides a globally unique and interoperable identifier as a starting point for business identity. Enhancements such as a verifiable LEI or the LEI embedded in digital certificates could expand benefits and adoption. However, coverage of registered businesses has yet to improve. Also, vLEI is built on a completely different technology stack than other verifiable credential systems, which could create adoption challenges.
5. OpenID is an open standard, decentralized authentication protocol, and its extension "OpenID for Identity Assurance”As an expression of verifiability and quality of attributes, it has great potential to enable secure and trusted identity assurance and data sharing between enterprises and service providers. The Global Assured Identity Network (GAIN) initiative aims to build a global, interoperable enterprise identity and authentication system on top of banks’ existing KYC processes and OpenID standards. It’s like building bridges between islands of ecosystems. Interoperability between different ecosystems has been demonstrated through a technical proof of concept led by Dima Postnikov, who is participating in the Sydney room, but business and operational realities must catch up before it is ready to take off.
6. Decentralized Identifiers and Verifiable Credentials ModelSome, sometimes built on blockchain, aim to give companies more control over their data while enabling trusted data sharing, but significant investment and maturity in infrastructure is still required.
7. Like the Indian Account Aggregator Framework,Corporate ID infrastructure as a public goodSome governments are actively developing them, and while they are showing traction in these economies, it remains to be seen whether this pattern will propagate to other parts of the world.

in conclusion:

In summary, corporate ID is progressing but remains fragmented today. Various stakeholders, including registries, banks, service providers and policymakers, have a critical role to play. Strengthening the LEI system, open ID-based initiatives like GAIN, decentralized ID standards and public infrastructure can help accelerate the development of a trusted and inclusive corporate ID ecosystem that supports improved financial stability, integrity and access. Political will and multi-stakeholder collaboration are essential to fully realize its potential.

I hope you will find inspiration in some of the key issues I have raised in today's roundtable.