Page 66 - ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services – Technology, innovation and competition

ITU-T Focus Group Digital Financial Services
Technology, Innovation and Competition

Appendix A: Identity architectures

A.1 Monolithic IDP architecture

Monolithic identity models typically involve a large commercial entity acting as a digital IDP, offering identification
and authentication services for third party organisations. Google and Facebook Connect provide market
examples, collecting large amounts of consumer data as part of the identification process (often self-asserted)
and leveraging username and password credentials in order to authenticate consumers to that data. Figure 7
illustrates the logical architecture of the monolithic IDP model.

Figure 7: Monolithic digital identity architecture

Applications within DFS

To date, implementation of this model in the developed world has surrounded two main use cases:

• Providing access to third-party online services: Consumers can register for or log onto third party online
services by providing/consenting to access for that party to the personal information held by the IDP.

• Targeted marketing services: Providers use the large quantities of personal data attributes collected from
consumers in order to offer targeted advertisement services to third party organisations. The success
of Facebook’s targeted marketing services is such that the platform auctions its advertising space to the
highest bidder in order to manage demand .
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In recent years, broader use cases, involving the use of monolithic architectures for credit risk and enhancing
financial inclusion, have been explored. Germany-based Kreditech uses information from Facebook to
supplement other data in order to determine an individual’s credit risk . A recent study by Consult Hyperion,
27
Visa, and Hello Soda revealed the scope of application could stretch further still ; utilising an individual’s
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social media footprint to increase convenience in consumer payments and establishing more personalised
relationships between financial institutions and their consumers.
However, applications within the developing world are encumbered by relatively low penetration rates among
data aggregating Internet giants, particularly among the target market for DFS. According to data from We
Are Social, Africa contributes less than six per cent of active social media profiles globally despite making up
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roughly 15 per cent of the world’s population .
30
31

26 https:// en- gb. facebook. com/ business/ help/ 197976123664242/
27 http:// money. cnn. com/ 2013/ 08/ 26/ technology/ social/ facebook- credit- score/ index. html
28 https:// www. visaeurope. com/ media/ pdf/ the%20 use%20 of%20 social%20 data%20 in%20 financial%20 services. pdf
29 http:// wearesocial. com/ uk/ special- reports/ digital- in- 2016
30 http:// www. bing. com/ search? q= population+of+Africa& form= IE11TR& src= IE11TR& pc= TEJB
31 http:// www. worldometers. info/ world- population/

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