HSBC and Barclays are among a consortium of private and public sector organisations testing the use of a citizen’s national digital identity from France to open a bank account in the UK.
The Project, co-financed by the European Union's Connecting Europe Facility, brings together HSBC, Barclays, the UK Government Digital Service (GDS), Orange, OT-Morpho and the Open Identity Exchange (OIX UK), to test the use of public sector eIDAS (Electronic Identity and Signature) standards for banking across borders.
The Consortium will develop a prototype model utilising the Mobile Connect authentication process to enable users to request a digital ID that is validated via eIDAS. Mobile Connect is a user authentication and identity service based on the OpenID Connect/OAuth2 standards.
For the pilot tests, Orange will create the services that will allow a digital identity to be set up for use by a French citizen through Mobile Connect, while OT-Morpho will develop services and infrastructure for the identity authentication process.
Trista Sun, HSBC global head of international and cross border, says: “We already have a world-class international account opening service. However, currently, customers often have to produce a separate set of identification paperwork when they open a bank account in a new country. The use of recognised, trusted digital IDs across borders will revolutionise this process.”