Digital ‘passport’ proves identity for online transactions

Every day between 70 percent and 90 percent of online financial transactions are abandoned because consumers are told to finish them by taking their driving license, passport or utility bill to a local bank branch for in-person verification. That’s according to UK-based miiCard, which aims to help solve that problem with a single sign-on for use at participating sites whenever identity validation is required. Essentially, the miiCard lets consumers skip the offline identity-verification step by providing a third-party-validated identity to the vendor website. Once it launches officially, consumers will sign up for the miiCard by simply supplying basic personal information such as full name, address and date of birth. To add validation, they can then choose additional pieces of information to supply — the higher their resulting “level of assurance,” as the company puts it, the wider the range of services and products they’ll have access to using the miiCard. In any case, every time consumers use their miiCard, their identity is verified via a series of secure token exchanges between them, their computer, their mobile phone and the website owner’s computer system. miiCard is free to the consumer and charged to the vendor on a transactional basis. Powered by Yodlee, the miiCard will enable consumers in North America, Western Europe, India and Australia to prove they are who they say they are. Currently, the company seeks business, channel and developer partners. One to get involved in early? (Related: Three wallet cards in one.) Spotted by Ken Green