Banco Santander & CaixaBank back Spanish digital identity project
Banco Santander, CaixaBank and Bankia are among just some of the Spanish firms backing a digital identity solution underpinned by blockchain.
The project, dubbed Dalion, will give Spanish consumers the ability to manage their own digital identity. The firms want to make it easier for Spain’s 47 million citizens to fill out forms when taking up new services.
Already ahead of concept testing which began in October 2019, the project is in its second phase this month. The aim is to roll out the solution “within the next six months”, by May 2021.
The project is calling for further partners to join the project to boost overall usage in Spain
Testing revealed that “the solution works satisfactorily” so far, according to an announcement of the project. Phase two begins this month.
Other firms involved include Spain’s largest stock exchange Bolsa de Madrid, as well as IT firm Inetum, Liberbank, insurers Línea Directa and Mapfre, energy providers Naturgy and Repsol, as well as the Spanish blockchain consortium – Alastria.
The project is also calling for further partners to join the project to boost overall usage in Spain. The hope is that the venture will “bring Spain to the fore in terms of blockchain and identity management”.
How it will work
The Dalion project seeks to improve upon traditional Single Sign-on (SSO) solutions adopted by Big Techs such as Google or Facebook.
The digital identities created by the project will be stored on consumers’ mobile device.
People can then use the validated data to – for example – hire a car, take out insurance or a loan, or open an electricity contract.
“The challenge is to ensure that it has legal effects which are equivalent to the most advanced data validation and authentication processes available today,” the firms say in a joint statement.
The ten companies hope their involvement in the project will boost the number of users which register for their services.
They also say a digital identity solution will allow a number of them to create new products.
The demo version of the solution rests on the Alastria consortium’s Ethereum-based blockchain infrastructure, called ‘Alastria ID’.
Alastria has some 600 partners and has designed the identity solution alongside Spanish and EU regulations.
“In the months ahead, work will also be carried out on other aspects of technical implementation and use cases,” the firms say.
The Alastria ID identity model has already presented to the Spanish Standardisation Association (UNE).
“[It] is moving forward from a ‘de facto’ standard to a formal standard,” say the firms.
It has submitted blueprints to the UNE’s European counterpart, CEN/CENELEC. And is serving as inspiration for the European Commission’s self-sovereign identity initiative, ESSIF.
