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IDTrust

Cross-Group KYC via Decentralized Identity on Hedera

Modernizing Multi-Entity KYC with Secure Decentralized Identity for Tier 1 Bank in Africa.

A leading multinational banking group operating across multiple markets, serving retail and institutional clients with a strong focus on scale, resilience, and regulatory excellence. 

Challenge

Large banking groups were often fragmented into siloed business units that did not share a common database. This forced customers to undergo redundant, manual KYC processes every time they interacted with a new department. These repetitive processes increased administrative costs and degraded the overall client experience.​

Solution

To eliminate repeated, manual KYC created by siloed business units with no shared customer database, we designed a group-wide “virtual identity interface” that lets a customer complete verification once and then securely reuse the same verified credentials across departments. Using decentralized identity and distributed-ledger–backed verification, each unit will be able to instantly validate the customer’s existing credentials (without duplicating data or re-running checks), reducing onboarding friction, lowering administrative effort and cost, and delivering a faster, consistent client experience while supporting regulatory compliance. 

Business Outcomes

  • Cost Efficiency: Verifying cross-departmental credentials could be achieved at a cost of less than $0.01 per issuance.  

  • Reduced Friction: Near-zero latency in verification allows customers to use existing KYC data to immediately access new bank services.  

  • Simplified Trust: By recognizing the bank’s root signature, sub-departments automatically trust credentials issued by any other business unit within the group. 

Technical Solution Overview

The solution utilizes a decentralized identity platform that allows business units to issue and verify credentials without a common centralized database. 

The platform enables the issuance of Verifiable Credentials (VCs) directly to a customer's digital wallet after an initial KYC process was completed by a primary department. This infrastructure allows any other department to instantly trust and verify those credentials through hierarchical digital signatures.
 
Here’s how the platform utilizes Hedera DLT to replace redundant, manual processes with a high-speed digital identity workflow:  

  • Onboarding: A primary department (e.g., Home Loans) performs the initial KYC and issues a Verifiable Credential to the customer.  

  • Portable Identity: The customer holds their own credential in a digital wallet, making it valid for use across all other business units.  

  • Instant Verification: Subsequent departments (e.g., Vehicle Finance) instantly verify the credential via Hedera without needing a direct technical integration with the first department.  

  • Hierarchical Trust: Sub-departments automatically trust credentials by recognizing the bank's "root signature," which simplified onboarding for new services. 

Implementation Process

Initial Idenification

Using a primary department to identify the customer and grant a KYC Verifiable Credential using the identity platform.​ 

Using a primary department to identify the customer and grant a KYC Verifiable Credential using the identity platform.​ 

Implementation

Enabling other business units to request and verify the VC from the customer using Hedera as a Trust Anchor.​ 

Scaling Trust

Implementing hierarchical signing so business units only need to recognize the bank's root signature to trust any issued credential.​ 

Implementing hierarchical signing so business units only need to recognize the bank's root signature to trust any issued credential.​ 

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