ICONLOOP and Shinhan Bank Deliver Korea's First Commercial DID Identity Verification Service in Finance
- NH NongHyup Bank and IBK Industrial Bank of Korea also plan to begin issuing MyID-based identity verification in stages within the year
[Photo caption: Zzeung, ICONLOOP's blockchain DID service built on MyID]
August 26, 2020, Seoul — ICONLOOP (CEO JH Kim), a leading Korean blockchain company, announced today that it is issuing Shinhan Bank identity verification through Zzeung, a blockchain decentralized identifier (DID) service built on its MyID platform. The move is significant as Korea's first commercial deployment of a DID service in the financial sector.
Zzeung is a DID service built on the MyID platform, which has been designated an Innovative Financial Service by the Financial Services Commission (FSC) and therefore benefits from a special exemption simplifying non-face-to-face identity verification procedures. Its security has been validated through review by the Financial Security Institute.
The DID technology applied in Zzeung is a new type of authentication in which identity information, once verified through a trusted institution, is encrypted and stored on the user's phone — so that when personal data needs to be submitted, users can select and submit it themselves.
Shinhan Bank issues Zzeung identity verification after verifying the user's identity in line with the guidelines of the Act on Real Name Financial Transactions — through mobile phone identity authentication, ID document capture, and account ownership verification. When submitting it to other institutions, the Innovative Financial Service regulatory exemption applies, allowing simple repeat submission with only a fingerprint check rather than repeating those steps. Whether the identity information has been tampered with is verified via the blockchain.
Zzeung identity verification will be applied across a range of non-face-to-face identity confirmation tasks in Shinhan SOL — beginning with identity confirmation when changing login credentials, and extending to mobile OTP issuance, password changes, and know-your-customer (KYC). To grow the service, several Shinhan Financial Group affiliates — including Shinhan Card, Shinhan Investment Corp., Shinhan Life Insurance, Orange Life, and Jeju Bank — are reviewing adoption within the year. Users who obtain Shinhan Bank identity verification in Zzeung will then be able to verify their identity easily not only for banking in the Shinhan SOL app, but also across financial apps spanning securities, cards, and insurance, as well as affiliated everyday-life apps.
"Issuing identity verification with Shinhan Bank carries great significance as Korea's first commercial deployment of a DID service in the financial sector," said ICONLOOP CEO JH Kim. "We will expand Zzeung beyond the financial industry to every field where identity verification is needed, so that more users can experience the convenience of DID technology across a wide range of areas."
"DID will be the entry point to the digital ID ecosystem that will spread from here, and we expect it to develop into a platform for managing and trading not just personal identity information but data itself," said Hyunki Jang, Head of Shinhan Bank's Digital R&D Center. "If a variety of partners join the ecosystem from the second half of this year onward, this shift into the digital era will accelerate."
Following Shinhan Bank, NH NongHyup Bank and IBK Industrial Bank of Korea are also scheduled to open services as Zzeung identity verification issuers within the year. Going forward, ICONLOOP plans to work with the MyID Alliance — made up of 77 partner institutions and companies across fields including commercial banks, securities firms, local governments, e-commerce companies, and manufacturers — to expand Zzeung into a service offering many forms of identity verification, from financial identity verification to visit authentication and credential verification.
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