Indonesia's digital economy is growing rapidly. Financial products are increasingly accessible online. People can open bank accounts from their phones and apply for loans without leaving home.
At first glance, the defining feature of the digital economy appears to be the sheer volume of transactions. But behind every transaction is something equally important: identity authentication, the process of ensuring that an action is being carried out by an authorized person.
As the digital economy continues to grow, one foundation must develop at the same pace: digital identity infrastructure.
Founder and Group CEO of VIDA, Niki Luhur, has shared how the slow development of digital identity infrastructure once held back the financial industry.
In an interview with InvestorTrust, he explained that his involvement with the Indonesian Fintech Association (AFTECH) opened his eyes to a growing gap between the digital economy and identity infrastructure. Before VIDA was established, Niki and AFTECH mapped out some of the challenges facing the fintech industry. One of the biggest was the ability to verify users remotely.
The industry needed e-KYC, legally binding digital signatures, and onboarding processes that did not require users to be physically present.
Other challenges pointed to the same underlying issue. Processes that began online still had to end with wet signatures, printed documents, manual signing, and physical delivery.
All of this revealed one thing: Indonesia's digital economy was moving fast, but its digital identity infrastructure was struggling to keep up.
From Payment Infrastructure to Identity Infrastructure
Before VIDA, Niki built Kartuku, one of Indonesia's largest payment infrastructure companies. At its peak, Kartuku processed nearly 30% of the country's national payment system transaction volume before being acquired by Gojek and becoming part of the foundation for GoPay.
His experience with Kartuku revealed an important pattern: infrastructure technology may be invisible to users, but it determines whether an ecosystem can grow at scale and deliver meaningful impact to the people who rely on it.
The same principle applies to digital identity infrastructure. On the surface, a user's transaction experience may feel seamless. Behind the scenes, however, businesses need to know who is opening an account, accessing a service, or approving a transaction.
The technology supporting these interactions needs to keep pace with the rapid development of payment infrastructure. Otherwise, the security of transactions and user identities is at stake.
VIDA was built to help businesses close this gap. As a licensed Electronic Certification Provider under Indonesia's Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs, VIDA provides infrastructure that enables digital identity verification, the issuance of legally binding electronic signatures, and remote onboarding validated biometrically against the national population database.
As more activities move online, identity increasingly becomes a target for fraud. Verifying someone once during onboarding is no longer enough. Trust in an identity needs to be maintained every time someone logs in, accesses an account, or performs a high-risk activity.
The Infrastructure That Makes Digital Services Work
E-commerce could not grow without payment systems and logistics networks. In the same way, digital services need a trusted way to know who is behind every interaction.
Financial services, healthcare, government services, and countless other digital platforms all face the same question: How can we ensure that the person behind the screen is really the right person?
Digital identity helps answer that question. It is not simply an administrative process completed during registration. It is the foundation that enables businesses to build secure and ongoing digital relationships with their users.
For more information, contact https://vida.id/id/sales
Read the full interview with Niki Luhur on InvestorTrust:
https://investortrust.id/indepth/114045/lebih-baik-melangkah-daripada-menyesal-seumur-hidup
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