“UK Banking Sector Gears Up for ‘Super App’ Rollout to Provide Citizens with Comprehensive Economic Data”
The UK government could launch a ‘super app’ that acts as an economic digital ID. Photo: Getty
The UK government will eventually launch a “super app” that will contain every citizen’s combined economic footprint, from credit ratings to know-your-customer (KYC) details, a top banker has predicted.
This economical digital ID aims to follow in the footsteps of the UK Government’s rapid and widespread rollout of the NHS health app, which has grown in popularity amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The NHS app was first launched by the UK government in January 2019. This one-stop shop for the health records of all UK citizens met little resistance when it was launched and has been widely used when people were required to disclose their vaccination status during subsequent coronavirus lockdowns.
Since launch, the app’s popularity has exploded and is now used by more than 22 million people in the UK.
The UK financial sector has taken note of the NHS app’s popularity and a senior bank official predicts the introduction of an equivalent digital ID for UK citizens’ economic records is inevitable.
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Commenting on this “super app” which could hold all the financial data of any UK citizen, UK Treasury Chief Bob Wigley said: “This will be the year we finally convince the banking system that we are going to have an economical digital identity system , just like the NHS app.”
Speaking at Tuesday’s New Digital Assets and Money Symposium conference in the City of London, he added: “This finance app will be personal and tied to every citizen as we need a broader, all-digital economic identity program.”
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The member of the UK Government’s Financial Services Trade Advisory Group at the Department for International Trade added: “If we don’t do it, the big tech platforms will, so we should design it.”
Wigley told Yahoo Finance that this app would contain everything from personal economic data like credit ratings to anti-money laundering data and would know your customer details (KYC).
He added, “It would be something that each person would carry with them and they could then connect it to any platform or financial institution they work with, like banks and insurance companies.”
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