Snippings

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Digital Identity Approaches: The US vs the EU
Despite fundamental differences in governance structures, both the US and the European Union are making significant strides in digital identity, with their respective frameworks showing signs of interoperability.
The United States: The Ascendancy of Mobile Driver’s Licenses (mDLs)
After a protracted period of stagnation, the US is witnessing rapid adoption of mobile driver’s licenses (mDLs), issued at the state level.
While not yet designated as formal identity documents, mDLs are expected to function analogously to their physical counterparts, particularly as they gain traction in regulatory and commercial use cases.
The TSA (Transportation Security Administration) has formally approved the use of mDLs for domestic air travel, marking a significant milestone in digital identity acceptance.
The Biden Administration’s Cybersecurity Executive Order has allocated federal funding to accelerate mDL adoption, recognising the technology’s potential in enhancing digital security and reducing identity fraud.
The mDL movement, which originated in Louisiana, is now proliferating across multiple states. However, the trajectory of federal support remains contingent on policy direction under the incoming administration.
The European Union: The eIDAS Digital Identity Mandate
In contrast to the state-driven evolution of US digital identity, the EU is implementing a centralized regulatory mandate under the eIDAS (Electronic Identification, Authentication and Trust Services) Regulation.
Member states are legally obligated to provide digital identity wallets to all citizens by 2026, ensuring cross-sectoral acceptance by 2027.
Large-scale pilot programs are underway, integrating public and private sector stakeholders to validate interoperability and security standards.
The WE BUILD initiative, a newly unveiled EU pilot, aims to refine implementation strategies through collaborative industry participation.
In a landmark move, the European Commission has mandated that EU digital identity wallets adhere to ISO 18013 protocols, aligning them with US mDL standards.
This cross-continental standardisation is poised to facilitate seamless identity verification between the EU and the US, signalling an unprecedented level of global interoperability.
The UK’s Position: Lagging or Strategically Observing?
Caught between the US. and EU approaches, the UK government has announced a 2025 rollout of a digital identity wallet, incorporating a digital driver’s license.
However, the announcement was light on specifics, and the UK’s progress in digital identity remains comparatively sluggish.
Given the rapid developments in the US and EU, it is likely that growing international standardisation will exert pressure on the UK to accelerate its efforts in establishing a cohesive digital identity strategy.
A Defining Year for Global Digital Identity Ecosystems
The alignment of ISO 18013 standards across the US and EU represents a transformative moment in digital identity adoption, providing the foundation for cross-border authentication and identity verification.

From: Digital ID 2025: Regulatory imperatives, technological advancement.

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As I am huge payments nerd, I love reading through the very detailed surveys that the Fed and European Central Bank (ECB) produce, because I am always keen to see if there are trends emerging. The ECB latest survey is out now, and at least one trend is clear.

At a high level, the results are what you would expect. Around a fifth of European consumers’ day-to-day payments were made online, accounting for more than a third of consumer payments by value, and while the proportion of transactions conducted in cash continued to fall, cash is still half of all transactions at physical point of sale (POS).

(In terms of value, the most important single payment instrument was cards, but their share has fallen slightly since the last survey.)

If we focus on online transactions, almost half were in cards. The share of e-payment solutions (ie, digital wallets and mobile apps) was at 29% (up from 26%).

The large majority of recurring payments were made using direct debit, with credit transfers ranking in second place.

In 2024, 55% of euro area consumers expressed a preference for cards and other cashless payments when paying in a shop, while 22% preferred cash and 23% had no clear preference. Stated payment preferences were unchanged from 2022.

An increasing majority of euro area consumers, amounting to 62% (60%), considered it important or very important to have cash as a payment option. The perceived key advantages of cash were, first, its anonymity and protection of privacy and, second, the perception that it makes consumers more aware of their own expenses. This tied in with the majority of euro area consumers (58%) said they were concerned about their privacy when performing digital payments or other banking activities.

Most euro area consumers said they were satisfied with their access to cash, but this satisfaction has decreased slightly. A large majority, i.e. 87% (89%) of consumers, find it fairly easy or very easy to get to an ATM or a bank. Most consumers, i.e. 57%, never paid a fee when withdrawing cash from an ATM whereas 11% paid a fee always or most of the time.

A majority of euro area consumers (57%) said they had the option of withdrawing cash at shop counters.

The share of euro area consumers holding a payment account increased from 91% in 2022 to 93% in 2024. The share of consumers who own a payment card decreased from 94% in 2022 to 92% in 2024.

In 2024, 24% of euro area consumers reported that in the past month the payment method they would have preferred to use at physical locations was not always offered by the merchant or payee.

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Chase UK debuted in the CMA/IPSOS survey last August in a strong third place. It was an impressive entry for Chase, polling behind only Monzo and Starling for personal current accounts, overall service quality.

From: Chase UK beats Monzo and Starling to rank first in personal banking satisfaction survey – GlobalData.

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The AI Agent Index, the first public database to document information about currently deployed agentic AI systems, had 67 systems listed at the end of January 2025, most of them them pertaining to software and computing tasks, and the number continue to grow. The agentic AI era is upon us, and it is time to prepare for the word of agentic commerce.

The Bank of America Institute published a short report on “The new wave: Agentic AI” that says that while we may not be getting Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) or the technological singularity any time soon, advances in the AI power means that we may be approaching an accelerating super cycle of innovation, in which increasingly powerful models produce increasingly powerful apps that in turn, drive additional model advances and app capabilities.

 

 

The phrase agentic AI has received a lot of attention leaving some to wonder what all the excitement is about. Well, we are rapdily shifting from a world of AI agents (who suggest things for you to do) to a world of agentic AIs (who act of your behalf).

As we move into the age of agentic commerce, or a-commerce as I insist on calling it, the issue of digital identity becomes the fundamental enabler for neew ways of doing business. Hence it is very important just how a digitial identity infrastructure will work and how it will be governed.

Sam Altman’s World project (formerly known as “Worlcoin”) now wants to create tools that link certain AI agents to people’s online personas, allowing service providers to verify that an agent is acting on a person’s behalf. This is an important problem to solve: when an agent comes to my bank agent and asks it to transfer $100 to another agent, the bank agent needs to know two things. First, it needs to be able to uniquely identify the agent that is making the request. For audit and control reasons, the bank may not know who provides this agent, but it must know which agent it is (and, presumably, that the agent is authorised to talk to bank accounts in a particular jurisdiction). Secondly, the bank agent needs to know that my agent is authorised to act on my behalf for the particular transaction.

Now, in technical terms, these are relatively simply problems to solve. Verifiable credentials are the obvious mechanism for implementing the permissions.

 

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It kicks off with up to 150 queries and transactions available for customers, which translates into answering over 3000 questions. Based on generative artificial intelligence, the tool aims to humanise BBVA’s digital channels, with much friendlier interactions, while enhancing efficiency when answering questions.

From: BBVA virtual assistant gets AI-powered account and card management features.

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But the gallery’s owner has revealed how her livelihood and reputation were ‘ruined’ after the Pierce Brosnan with whom she spent months negotiating the exhibition of a lifetime turned out not to be the Bond star but a ‘deepfake’.

Simone Simms has spoken for the first time about how she fell for the elaborate artificial intelligence (AI) scam which resulted in her losing her £30,000 Long Eaton gallery.

From: Revealed: The sinister story of how an AI deepfake of 007 star Pierce Brosnan has left an art gallery owner’s world in tatters | Daily Mail Online.

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A tenant, who stole the identity of a woman called ‘Poonam Grover’, then paid a deposit and was able to pass the reference report with a forged driver’s licence.

From: I watched in horror as my tenant from hell sublet my flat on Airbnb before turning it into party pad and stealing my furniture… police said I had a ‘clear’ case but STILL took no action | Daily Mail Online.

This sort of nonsense goes on all the time. Showing a fake driving licence to someone who has no idea how to check whether a driving licence is real or not is a form of security theatre, not actual security.

 

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A 61-year-old woman has been arrested after allegedly dressing up in a series of wigs and disguises to take Life in the UK tests on behalf of others.
Immigration enforcement investigators arrested the woman at an address in Enfield on Monday on suspicion of fraudulently completing the citizenship tests for at least 14 applicants, both male and female.
She is alleged to have completed the tests across multiple test centres in the UK, disguising herself and doctoring ID documents to evade detection.

From: Enfield: Woman held for taking Life in the UK tests ‘in disguise’ – BBC News.

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A white paper from Boston Consulting Group “Apple in Payments—Winning by influencing” explored how Apple’s various initiatives (around BNPL, NFC and so on) will change the retail payments sector and concludes that “many merchants will add NFC payment funcitonality to their proprietary apps” because the ability to drive consumer loyalty through in-app rewards and offers in a seamless checkout experience wiill increase consumer engagement and in-store efficiency.

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Google Wallet on Thursday (Sept. 12) unveiled enhanced features to improve the travel and commuting experience.

Starting soon, per a Thursday Google blog post, U.S. users can create digital IDs from their passports for use at select TSA checkpoints, making domestic travel more convenient. The service also expands support for state-issued IDs and prepaid commuter benefit cards, with plans to integrate more transit options globally.

From: Google Wallet Debuts Digital IDs and Enhances Commuter Features.

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I think and talk a lot about the risks of powerful AI. The company I’m the CEO of, Anthropic, does a lot of research on how to reduce these risks.

From: Dario Amodei — Machines of Loving Grace.

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I believe that in the AI age, we should be talking about the marginal returns to intelligence7, and trying to figure out what the other factors are that are complementary to intelligence and that become limiting factors when intelligence is very high. 

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What have we learnt from El Salvador’s four-year bitcoin experiment? I would suggest that it definitively proved that bitcoin is not destined to be money.

From: Moneyness: The end of El Salvador’s bitcoin payments experiment.

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