Welcome 2017!
Now that we have all gotten January over with I wanted to touch base with my next quick update. All of a sudden we are into February, some of us have just celebrated Burns night with haggis and whisky, and shockingly the holidays are a distant memory. I can't even remember what I did over the holidays it feels like it was so long ago especially with everything that's been happening this year so far!
While its normally a depressing time of the year for a lot of people I have to say that the month has been hugely exciting. My world, the one of identity and PSD2, has continued to accelerate at a massive pace. Last year I remember talking a lot about the 'perfect storm' happening - this year I can feel the electric charge in the air. The wind has picked up, the air has that stormy energy about it and the sun is peaking strongly behind the clouds. It's exciting times for sure.
There are two big movements in the market that are converging this year. The first one is the Payment Services Directive (PSD2) and associated activity in the UK, Europe and now the US around opening up of bank data, open bank api's and allowing individuals to easily share this data. As I'm sure you know this is a topic very close to our heart as its what we do - and its great to see such a wide acceptance of the inevitability of this movement.
The second big movement that is quickly building up momentum in Europe is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which outlines new measures to deal with the ever increasing levels of personal data.
In today's environment where the collection and use of personal data is integral to effectively delivering services there's soon going to be a greater emphasis on data protection, security, control and transparency. These are all fundamental to our values and why miiCard was built the way it was. For those based in the UK the ICO has a good simple guide to get you started (https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisations/documents/1624219/preparing-for-the-gdpr-12-steps.pdf)
I think these are both pivotal in the evolution of online identity and trust - a challenge that's at the heart of what have been working on for over 5 years now.
As you may have already been told The ID Co. (previously called miiCard) early in 2015 pivoted from a consumer proposition to a business focus through the launch of DirectID. While it's the same value proposition of leveraging the bank as a source of identity, trust and data - it was the channel and delivery mechanism that changed. DirectID remains the primary focus for us just now although stay tuned for some exciting updates on miiCard later this year.
What is absolutely fantastic though is seeing how we are changing the world. How we are creating convenience in this complex world of financial services we live in while at the same time fundamentally changing the way businesses engage. We have seen DirectID adopted with huge success allowing business to:
Take a customer onboarding process that was taking days down to seconds
Reduce application fraud by 71%
Provide same day decisions on mortgage applications
Allow for same day payments in online lending decisions
It is this real world and tangible impact that is so purely motivating. Yes it's great to see our own metrics increase - the compound monthly traffic climb, number of transactions double every few months, the 30+ customers that have signed or even the couple a month that come onto the platform - but its seeing the change from days to seconds that gets us up in the morning. And this is just the start!
I recently gave a short talk at MEF in December that covers many of these points if your interested in having a quick look.
In addition to PSD2 and GDPR there is so much happening from the US Presidency through to Brexit - its going to be a very busy year. Its going to be a stormy year but as most Canadians would say - there's no such thing as bad weather - just bad clothing!
