For compliance teams verifying customers across jurisdictions, fragmented digital identity systems are becoming an operational and regulatory challenge. Hopae, an identity verification provider, has joined the FIDO Alliance, the standards body behind passkeys, as it expands its focus to interoperable digital credentials and authentication for AI agents.
The membership comes as the alliance broadens its agenda beyond passwordless authentication to address two areas with implications for identity assurance and know-your-customer (KYC) processes: the interoperability of verifiable credentials and the authentication of autonomous AI agents.
Hopae brings experience in connecting digital identity schemes across borders. Its Hopae Connect platform links more than 75 government-backed and bank-backed electronic identity (eID) schemes with businesses internationally. This aligns with the FIDO Alliance’s Digital Credentials Working Group, which aims to make credentials usable across different platforms and markets.
FIDO Alliance executive director and CEO Andrew Shikiar said, “We’re pleased to welcome Hopae to the FIDO Alliance. Their experience connecting more than 75+ eID schemes across borders speaks directly to the interoperability challenges our Digital Credentials Working Group is addressing, and we look forward to their contributions.”
The regulatory landscape is adding urgency to the issue. The EU is advancing digital identity wallets across its 27 member states, while national schemes such as Aadhaar in India, Singpass in Singapore and UAE PASS in the United Arab Emirates are already operating at scale. Mobile driving licences, decentralised identity models and emerging ISO standards are adding further complexity.
For regulated firms, these systems can involve different technical formats, assurance levels and trust frameworks. Verifying customers across multiple jurisdictions can therefore require a patchwork of integrations, creating potential gaps in onboarding and due diligence processes.
The Digital Credentials Working Group aims to address these challenges through approaches including wallet certification, technical specifications and usability guidance. By establishing common standards, the alliance hopes to make digital credentials easier to adopt and verify across different environments. Certification could also give compliance teams a more consistent basis for assessing the reliability of credentials and the wallets that store them.
Authentication for AI agents presents another emerging challenge for risk and compliance functions. As autonomous systems begin carrying out tasks and potentially initiating payments on behalf of individuals, firms will need to establish what those agents are authorised to do and how their actions can be traced back to verified users.
Without clear authentication and accountability mechanisms, applying existing controls for transaction monitoring, fraud prevention and liability could become more difficult. The FIDO Alliance has established Agentic Authentication and Payments working groups to examine these issues.
Hopae argues that digital identity requires an infrastructure layer connecting different schemes, allowing relying parties to accept credentials issued across jurisdictions. The company says its experience has demonstrated the need for connections between identity issuers, wallets, verifiers and relying parties across industries and markets. Without this interoperability, identity systems risk remaining fragmented and limiting the use of credentials in cross-border transactions.
Read the full Hopae announcement.
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Copyright © 2026 RegTech Analyst
