Two companies that I’m sure all of us are all too familiar with, are teaming up to pilot a new way of securely identifying consumers making payments in the digital world.
The eftpos digital identity solution, currently titled connectID powered by eftpos, aims to help Australian consumers protect their identities, avoid fraud and safely connect with merchants and government services using the eftpos payments network.
CEO of eftpos Stephen Benton explains that the company is partnering with Australia Post to trial connectID.
“It’s great to have other iconic Australian brands like Australia Post onboard to trial this identity solution, which fills an important gap in the market at a time when Australians are going online to transact more often, following the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We are collaboratively working with businesses, online merchants, banks and other identity providers with a view to building identity into our national payments infrastructure for all Australians and Australian businesses before the end of the year,” says Mr Benton.
He adds that the solution could be used to verify a consumer’s identity for a range of different reasons, such as proof of age, address details, or bank account information. This could be used to identify individuals for eCommerce transactions, or to ensure government payments are made to the right person during crisis situations like a bushfire – with the potential to transfer the money much faster than existing arrangements allow.
Head of Digital ID at Australia Post, Margo Stephen says: “This collaboration has enabled eftpos to prove out its model rapidly by leveraging our existing, interoperable technology. In turn, eftpos’ connectID, will offer even more places for those with an Australia Post Digital iD on their smartphone, to prove who they are when interacting online with both business and government.”
Interoperability is key to the connectID solution. It is designed to work within the Federal Government’s Trusted Digital Identity Framework (TDIF) and the industry’s TrustID framework, as well as emerging international standards.