Re: Web Payments and Identity

Manu,

Speaking broadly here, as I don't speak for Persona anymore: it's not
obvious to me that we should conflate all identity use cases into one.
Specifically, I see 3 paths for success:

1. simple web login and financial login are totally different and should be
served by different technologies.

2. financial login can build on top of simple web login with additional
layered features.

3. financial and simple web login can be served by the same product.

My only nudge here is to not presume that option 3 is the only way to go.
If the burden of KYC complicates the technology too much, the right
solution could be 1 or 2.

-Ben
On Sep 22, 2013 6:36 AM, "Manu Sporny" <msporny@digitalbazaar.com> wrote:

> I was recently asked to speak at the world banking conference about Web
> Payments. I had a ton of meetings with various big banks (HSBC,
> Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland, etc) over the past week. They
> desperately need an online identity solution, and I'm trying to get
> leading thinkers in this space together to talk about how we might come
> up with a solution that works for them while dovetailing it with the
> work we're doing here on identity.
>
> Here's the basic problem:
>
> In order to do anything serious with money in the world, financial
> institutions need to do something called a "Know Your Customer", aka
> KYC, process on their customers. This involves doing things like
> verifying their address, government ID, making sure they're not on a
> government watch list, etc. Each bank does this, typically in a way that
> is specific to that particular bank. The Bitcoin community is having to
> do this now as well, for large transactions.
>
> An identity solution for the Web should take these use cases into
> account. We already have a mechanism of endorsing data on the sorts of
> identities that we use in PaySwarm, but the bridge between that and
> things like Persona's PICL stuff is not clear at the present time. We
> really need to work through these details.
>
> Any future identity standard for the Web should take these issues (of
> KYC, government or private institutions endorsement, extensible
> metadata) into account. We're going to be discussing this at a high
> level on this weeks upcoming Web Payments call. I ask that at least a
> representative from the Persona, PICL, and Bitcoin communities
> participate in the conversation. The details about joining the call are
> here:
>
> http://lists.w3.org/Archives/**Public/public-webpayments/**
> 2013Sep/0126.html<http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-webpayments/2013Sep/0126.html>
>
> -- manu
>
> --
> Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
> blog: Meritora - Web payments commercial launch
> http://blog.meritora.com/**launch/ <http://blog.meritora.com/launch/>
>