Digital identity proofing platform provider, IDnow, has announced a UAE collaboration with UBIRCH, a German trust platform provider with regional headquarters in Dubai.
For the launch of a KYCT (know-your-customer token) solution, UBIRCH partners with IDnow. The solution proves the identity and ownership of crypto wallet holders and origin of minted assets, such as NFTs (non-fungible tokens).
The UAE has one of the highest rates of NFT ownership in the world, with 23 per cent of the population owning at least one, which is around double the global average. Many of the early crypto exchanges did not require a KYC check, which has led to a lack of trust in NFTs and a gap between the creator (maker) of an NFT and the buyer.
Combined with identity theft, challenges with proving ownership and origins of an asset in a legally binding contract, and ensuring digital art can be protected are current market barriers that must be overcome. At the same time, the cryptocurrency industry is rapidly changing and so are the regulation requirements. Therefore, the leading companies in crypto trading worldwide now enforce strong KYC policies, in order to comply with AML and KYC regulations.
Karim Attia, CEO of UBIRCH said: “The UAE is one of the leading countries for adoption of cryptocurrencies and NFTs. To support the popularity and growth of digital assets, our partnership with IDnow will enable us to create the most secure and trusted process for verifying identity and proof of origin, yet. Ultimately, this technology is essential to protect individuals, businesses, brands, creators and the entire financial ecosystem in a decentralised environment.”
Benjamin Haas, senior director EMEA of IDnow group said: “Bringing an additional identity layer to digital assets adds trust and credibility to the entire Web3 including crypto exchanges, NFTs and other financial offerings. Secure verification proves the identity of the creator and provides authenticity to the ownership of NFTs. It helps to close the gap between the NFT creator and the buyer, while reassuring the buyer that what they are purchasing is genuine.”
The KYCT technology addresses some of the challenges of the crypto and NFT community in ensuring that identity – both digital and legal – and proof of origin are accurate. The two companies join forces through UBIRCH’s trusted backend for proving that an asset belongs to a creator and was anchored at a specific time, and IDnow’s leading identity proofing platform that confirms the customer’s legal identity with the help of an official identification document.
While NFTs have been popularised through digital art, the technology can also be applied across a range of sectors, such as the tokenisation of digital health records, as digital access passes and tickets for events, or any occurrence where a tokenised model can be applied to acting parties and digital assets.
UBIRCH was founded in Germany in 2014 and has since expanded its global presence to the UAE, with offices in Dubai and Tel Aviv, Israel. As cybersecurity experts, UBIRCH brings advanced technology that propels digital transformation. UBIRCH is driven by a team of professionals who believe data-driven processes will provide many cross-industry exciting businesses, such as in the manufacturing industry, smart cities, insurance, healthcare, energy supply or logistics segments. UBIRCH is renowned through the contract awarded by the German Ministry of Health to develop, together with a consortium, the digital covid certificate for the EU for Germany.
