Pronto CX

There is a lot of talk about mobile wallet wars, etc. In my view, this debate starts in the wrong place. The question is not which wallet wins. It is what kinds of credentials do we need, how to use them and who is best placed to manage them. Mobile wallets handle several very different types of credentials. Each has its own expectations around trust, speed, security and governance. 1. Payments Phone OS wallets have become the de facto home for payments cards, as proven by the success of Apple Pay and Google Pay. Device-bound payment tokens and biometric protection are deep platform capabilities that have delivered global scale and consumer acceptance. 2. Loyalty, membership and ticketing These utility credentials rely on convenience, frequency and instant access. Apple Wallet and Google Wallet offer a significantly better digital experience than physical cards or paper versions, as used for event ticketing, retail loyalty and membership applications. The move from barcodes and QR codes, to more secure NFC tap experiences, is now well established, supported by steady upgrades to physical infrastructure across many sectors. 3. Access and transit Physical access credentials demand speed, reliability and strong security, plus smooth integration with existing access control systems using traditional RFID cards. Credential issuance and protection is made possible using secure OS-provided APIs, which are more aligned with OS wallets for user convenience. Good examples include hotel room keys in Apple Wallet, student ID cards and local transit schemes. 4. Digital ID (mDL) High-assurance digital ID requires international standardisation, governance frameworks, trust infrastructure and explicit accountability. The core technology standards are largely in place, aligning around ISO/IEC 18013-5 (mDL) for privacy protection, selective disclosure, and document signature validation. In the US, driving licences are being directly issued by states into Apple Wallet, Google Wallet, and Samsung Wallet. Other governments are building their own national wallet apps to store state ID documents to retain control over issuance and sovereignty. It still early days, but the tracks are being well laid. 5. Derived IDs By scanning an existing physical government ID, reading its NFC chip and confirming a live biometric match, a wallet can generate a derived ID. This is a secure digital version of the document, created using its original data, but re-issued and digitally signed by the entity that verified it. This is how Apple and Google issue passport-derived IDs into their wallets in the US. I believe that these OS Wallet derived IDs will scale very quickly, as it is perfect for uses like retail age verification. So let’s shift the debate away from wallet competition and focus instead on how each credential type can be deployed in a scalable, trustworthy, and well-governed way. #DigitalIdentity #NFC #AppleWallet #GoogleWallet #mDL #EUDI