In May 2022 Folio sponsored the British Bank Awards where Monzo picked up the highly coveted award of Best British Bank.
The evening of celebration was opened by Folio founder Antonio Mugica and newly appointed Executive Director, Ricky Knox who previously founded Tandem Bank and Azimo, they both gave an outline about the future of identity.
Antonio opened by saying:
“Tonight I want to talk to you about the future of identity, but first we must agree that Identity is broken. In a digital world of finance there is more choice for apps and services than ever before and users find themselves repeatedly having to provide the same identity documents to each provider, often with limited security or assurance that their document copies are safely stored.
Now imagine a world where you could open a new account with one click, no forms to fill, no documents to upload and with absolutely certainly that you are who you say you are. Sign up rates would increase, drop out rates would be reduced and consumers would have the convenience of logging in as themselves without having to remember endless passwords. In short a world with certainty and without friction!
It’s this world that Folio is dedicated to creating! And tonight we are announcing the launch of an identity ecosystem of hand selected partners who will facilitate this new way of frictionless access to services for our Folio users. Creating for the first time a real time network where users get immediate frictionless access to the services they need each and every day, without ever compromising security, productivity or their identity.
Ricky Knox then added:
‘When I founded Tandem bank we were only the second digital bank to get a license in the UK, and in such a short time the industry is already transforming as users demand more tailored services, in response Tandem focused on the climate crisis with an array of green products.
And as we see tonight, with over 81,000 votes, consumers are more vocal than ever and expect only the best levels of individualized services from digital banks and Fin-Tech.
So I wanted to focus our attention on a challenge the world faces in order to make this type of frictionless access to services a reality – that of the essential right to an identity, a basic human right which is required for participation in our digital world.
Yet nearly one billion people are unable to participate in the modern global system, unable to vote or even open a bank account.
This can be fixed but it requires a global ecosystem which is interoperable with national identity systems and also with global financial institutions. Folio has built the first generation of this ecosystem and I personally think it is a game changer!
I know there have been various efforts by banks to provide their own solution in the past, Barclays used to allow you to login to gov.uk and I know Monzo considered an alternative to Facebook login – But nothing has really worked so far, and I certainly haven’t seen anything like the Folio identity ecosystem before.
So I’d invite you all to join the identity movement and help to allow customers to own their own identity, helping to move towards a global identity solution along the way.
Antonio is uniquely positioned to solve this issue as he runs elections in over 30 countries and has been personally responsible for bringing voting to tens of millions of people who previously had no voice, through biometrics and voting cards.’
Antonio continued:
“So this is a space that I have known intimately for two decades and have worked hard for the past 5 years on designing a solution for the future.
The right to a personal identity is recognised in international law through a range of declarations and conventions, that every person has a right to their own private life and personal identity. I created Folio to accelerate this mission, using biometrics, IDV and smartphone technology to ensure each user retains privacy over their personal documents and identity.
Now with an ecosystem of partners, which we will initially launch in the UK before rolling out worldwide, we will ensure that every citizen who is verified on Folio will be able to access tools and services in a way which was previously unimaginable. The speed and productivity of ‘turning up online’ this way will have profound effects on users, business and economies, removing cost and friction from the services we consume.
A good analogy when it comes to ID systems is, plastic IDs are like CDs and DVDs, Jumio and the likes are like iTunes but Folio is like Spotify. Where now you can get seamless real time access to the music you want, we believe the same is possible for services.
We believe that Folio and the identity ecosystem will transform services, making them more immediate, secure and frictionless. The current way systems are architected is they assume they don’t know their customer and customers have to prove who they are, with passwords, usernames and uploading documents. With our approach we connect business to consumers and governments to citizens directly, without the barrier of having to prove who you are every time you need a service. Not just by saving login information but by tying your identity to verifiable documents demolishing fake accounts and deactivating bots from our online life.
Each Folio user is like a VIP, they can access all areas at any time without having to manually prove who they are again and again. This is a security and productivity revolution based on individuals owning their own identity and I believe that Folio with the right ecosystem of partners can make this happen.
So we extend an invitation to you gathered in this room tonight, to consider how your business could jump onto this identity revolution. Imagine the revenue you could take if you didn’t lose customers at sign up, or how efficient your systems would be if you didn’t have to worry about fake accounts and fraud. We believe many more users will be looking for the convenience of frictionless access to services and so we invite you to consider becoming part of this revolution with Folio.
For more details on Folio and the new identity ecosystem visit: Folio.id or email nik.maguire@folio.id
