That whole trust thing
[Dave Birch] A survey from the not-entirely-disinterested American Bankers Association says that US consumers trust banks far more than anyone else (including the government) to look after their identity. It’s certainly been discussed enough — the idea that banks might become identity brokers of some description — and it has always seemed to me that it’s not a crazy idea. Further, some leading banks actually set up a consortium to do just this a few years ago. That consortium, Identrus, has become IdenTrust. If trust is the one intangible commodity banks possess that rises above anything non-bank rivals might have, and with digital certificates and digital signatures once again been seen as the general solution to the identity problem, then perhaps its day has come.
