We would like to take this opportunity to thank the participating companies and organisations for their active cooperation and inspiring discussions. A very special thank you goes to the Swiss Post for its active assistance, both organisationally and professionally, in the successful implementation of the previous workshops.
Insights and first delivery results of our proof of concept
Over the past few months, we have gained a basic understanding of the mechanics of a decentralised trust network and have delved deeper into the principles of Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) and their practical application. In the process, we have discovered that...
... existing processes have to be completely rethought beyond the system boundaries
... added value is created for all stakeholders through the interaction of all stakeholder groups.
... customers benefit in particular from the efficient and simple service development as well as the comfortable and self-determined further use of their data.
... completely new positioning and earnings opportunities open up for companies.
It is crucial to have all stakeholders involved at the same table in order to holistically assess the technical and organisational scope of improvements through SSI. Bringing the individual stakeholders together results in valuable discussions and innovative solutions. SSI enables completely new and customer-centric user journeys.
In the past six months, we were able to create a methodology for the structured recording of existing processes, derivation of pain points and prioritisation of optimisation potentials by processing the use cases "inheritance of private persons" and "issuance of matriculation confirmation". Subsequently, we developed a solution design that allows the conceptual operationalisation of the existing use cases with the architectural principle SSI. This resulted in a target process that can be generically applied to any use case.
Deep-Dive: Use Case "Issuance of Enrolment Confirmation
Since October 2022, we have been working on the use case "Issuing matriculation confirmation" at the monthly workshops of our PoC. In concrete terms, this means that a new student can enrol at a university and then obtain the enrolment confirmation as a "verified credential" in a wallet on his smartphone. This verified credential can then be used in various scenarios to prove that they are currently enrolled as a student at their university.
Potential use cases that we considered in our PoC are listed below:
The student is thus able to use his student ID (or parts of it) efficiently and self-determined in university and cross-sector contexts. All other stakeholders (banks, universities, compensation offices, etc.) also benefit significantly, for example through the homogenisation of cross-company processes and standardisation of data. This results in leaner and more efficient processes overall, higher data quality is achieved and integration and processing efficiency increases. Currently, approximately 280,000 people in Switzerland are enrolled at a public higher education institution (Statista, 2022). If higher technical colleges and other educational institutions are included, there are approximately 800,000 people, or around 10% of the Swiss population, who would benefit from this solution.
We would like to initialise a trust network in the area of "Customer Onboarding & KYC", which enables bank customers to develop efficient, cross-sector services and to handle their data in a self-determined manner. By examining different use cases, we generate valuable insights that support us in designing the trust network across all levels (1 to 4).
Within the framework of our PoC, we have already been able to gain interesting insights at all stages. On the one hand, we look at use cases from the perspective of the end customer, and on the other hand, we look at the entire life cycle of these use cases, from identification to balancing.
Stage 1: The Student ID information presented in the first part of the news article provides valuable basic data for accelerating onboarding in a cross-sector context (e.g. student account at a bank, ticketing, exams, etc.).
Stage 2: Opening or maintaining a banking relationship can be done much more efficiently by using existing basic and KYC data from a regulated bank/FinTech.
Stage 3: When opening a “Savings 3” securities account with a bank/FinTech, KYC data (e.g. investor profile, knowledge and experience in the investment business) can be used from an existing client relationship.
Stage 4: The digital issuing of a death certificate enables the continuous dissolution of a deceased person's customer relationships in all areas of life (finances, housing, mobility, health).
In the coming months, we will define an Open API that can be used in the context of Customer Onboarding & KYC for cross-company collaboration for the benefit of the customer. The API contains a basic KIT, which contains all the basic data of the customer. Depending on the business case, it can be extended in a modular way to be able to transmit the necessary information for the specific use case (e.g. investor profile, tax data, loans).
Through these activities, we gain important insights along the service development of consumers and insights into the positioning possibilities of banks in terms of embedded finance. Furthermore, regulatory compliance in the context of the revised Data Protection Act (keyword data portability) is being established.
Be part of our community and drive this development forward together with us. For further information, please do not hesitate to contact us: info@obp.ch