Frictionless Transactions

For identity services to make digital life more convenient, rather than slowing it down, they must balance the rigour of approaches such as multifactor authentication with the convenience of entering a PIN or swiping a card. Operators occupy a crucial equilibrium between security and ease: there is no mass market infrastructure more secure than the cellular network, and there is no more convenient digital mechanism than one which billions carry with them as a matter of course.

Adaptive authentication solutions based on operator data such can verify a user to 99.9% accuracy within just three online interactions. This allows potentially suspicious behaviour such as call diversions or SIM swaps to be flagged and checked automatically – of considerable utility in use cases such as mobile banking, which is thought to have grown by 300% in 2019, accounting for 58% of the global banked population.

Seamless authentication of this kind is a key advantage offered by the mobile industry in digital identity. Where frictionless user experience can be achieved alongside proven trust in digital interactions, the balance required by enterprise and consumers alike will be achieved, and commercial success for the service provider is likely to follow.