7 Predictions & 1 Day Of Reckoning For 2018

PALO, ALTO, Calif.—Look for mobile identities incorporating biometrics to become a stronger play in authentication this year, as well as cryptocurrencies to continue to gain mainstream adoption.

IdentityMind Global shared its predictions for 2018 across a variety of topics including know your customer (KYC), anti-money laundering (AML), initial coin offerings (ICOs) and more.

1. Adoption of digital identities will continue to rapidly grow in identity proofing and regulatory compliance. “Today’s digital economy is built upon the premise or ability of any company to determine that the user/business entity with whom they are interacting is who they say they are,” said IdentityMind Global, which believes that digital identities – the secure sum of a person’s physical credentials (passport, driver’s license, etc.), personally identifiable information (email, Social Security numbers, credit card numbers, phone, etc.) and digital touchpoints (transaction behavior, social media activity, email, devices) as a person transacts on the Internet – will continue to gain rapid acceptance as the method for identity proofing and regulatory compliance. 
2. Know your customer, anti-money laundering and fraud detection are moving from silos to a single customer view. A single customer view across KYC, AML and fraud using digital identities will provide an aggregated, consistent and holistic view of the customer, said IdentityMind Global. “Enterprises will have the ability to apply a risk-based approach for creating a good digital experience for good end users, while protecting their platform from bad actors.”  
3. Cryptocurrencies and Initial Coin Offerings will continue to skyrocket in 2018 but a day of reckoning is coming. 2017 witnessed the hyper growth of cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and others while ICO’s continue to skyrocket, noted IdentityMind Global. “According to Autonomous Research, ICOs have raised a total of $4 billion in 2017. We anticipate both trends will continue to escalate in 2018, but a day of reckoning is coming in the form of increasing scrutiny and regulation from the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and other regulatory bodies,” IdentityMind Global said. “This will translate into a mandate for banking, financial services and exchanges trading in cryptocurrencies to implement stronger investor protections and stricter transaction monitoring to prevent money laundering.”
4. Are companies ready for GDPR compliance (May 25, 2018)? The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is set to come into full effect on May 25, 2018 and will dictate how companies address data protection in Europe. “Many organizations are going to struggle to meet the compliance deadline, especially those who haven’t allocated sufficient human and capital resources to meet the requirements. The result? Many companies will be in non-compliance and will be vulnerable to loss of business and reputation,” stated IdentityMind Global. “While the main impact is going to be for those companies operating directly in the EU market, it will have consequences worldwide that will start unraveling as the regulation is being enforced. Some of the most affected companies will be those that use identity data for marketing purposes.”
5. Identity theft will continue to grow with non-stop data breaches and the corresponding loss of personally identifiable information (PII). Identity theft will continue to grow, and grow and grow with no end in sight, IdentityMind Global predicted. “According to the Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC), as of December 2017, there have been over 8,100 data breaches in the U.S. with over 1,055,000,000 records exposed. These data breaches have unleashed a mountain of physical and digital PII into the hands of well-organized and well-funded hackers and cybercriminals operating around the globe,” IdentityMind Global said. “Many are beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement. Cybercriminals are not collecting this data for fun. The black market for stolen identities is huge, with a going rate for an individual identity varying from $2 to $500, depending on the richness of the information, and the value of certain attributes like credit scores, the number of functioning credit cards and more. The need for digital identities to evolve into more meaningful know your customer processes will continue to gain traction in the market, and this will help overcome the lack of reliable data sources for identity validation.” 
6. Digital identity portability will gain traction in the KYC industry. Know your customer processes will be streamlined and users will no longer have to go through KYC processes with each new institution with whom they want to be a customer. Digital identities in financial institutions will play a huge role in this evolution, IdentityMind Global said.
7. Mobile identities incorporating biometrics will become a stronger play in authentication. Biometric components – such as facial recognition, fingerprint identification, hand geometry, retina scans, voice analysis and the like –  are rapidly coming into play through mobile devices. “These devices, in turn, will become the de facto authentication mechanism for identities in every online application,” IdentityMind Global said.    
8. Cryptocurrencies will continue to gain mainstream adoption. Cryptocurrencies are gaining acceptance today in e-commerce and marketplaces. “At the time of this writing, few banks or merchants offer cryptocurrencies. However, we predict that will all change in 2018 with broader adoption of cryptocurrencies in banking, loans and financial services,” IdentityMind Global said. “Banks will need to allow customers to open accounts that store and trade digital currencies and more traditional currencies such as dollars, yen, pounds or renminbi.”