QUICK TAKE:

  • Oasis Labs announced that it has teamed up with Equifax to enhance identity verification in the Web3 economy

  • Both companies have teamed up to provide best-in-class identity management and Know Your Customer (KYC) credentialing solutions

  • The solution will be for Web3 companies and individuals wishing to participate in the Web3 economy

On October 26, Oasis Labs announced that it has teamed up with Equifax to provide identity verification services to Web3 platforms. Oasis Labs is a privacy-first cloud computing platform based on blockchain technology. Alternatively, Equifax is a global data, analytics, and technology company.

Notably, both companies have teamed up to provide best-in-class identity management and Know Your Customer (KYC) credentialing solutions. The solution will be for Web3 companies and individuals wishing to participate in the Web3 economy anywhere in the world.

Furthermore, Oasis will build a first-of-its-kind decentralized identity management and KYC solution for Web3 on the Oasis Platform. The company will do so by using award-winning Equifax identity, fraud, and compliance data. It is worth noting that the ability to conduct KYC due diligence and ongoing monitoring will be built into the Oasis Network. It is a privacy-first blockchain platform that supports confidential computing, individual data rights, and governance that uses sensitive data while keeping it secure and private.

Professor Dawn Song, founder of Oasis Labs said,

We are excited to partner with Equifax in this Web3 endeavor. Equifax is an innovative leader in the financial services space and brings highly credible and reliable data that will help drive more trust in using blockchain technology for real use cases.

She further noted,

We are working to not only build a better, more efficient decentralized identity and on-chain KYC solution, but to help accelerate the adoption of Web3 and bring more trust to the industry.

Identity Management on Web3

Moreover, Equifax and Oasis are developing a KYC solution in which “privacy technology is key” and will play an “important role throughout the full stack,” according to Song. She added that Oasis intends to use secure hardware, zero-knowledge proofs, anonymous credentials, and decentralized identity management to ensure privacy on Web3.

Despite the fact that Equifax suffered a massive data breach in 2017, Song stated that the company’s capabilities beyond KYC, such as fraud detection and credit reporting, will help bridge the gap between Web2 and Web3.

Web3 companies, DeFi protocol users, and NFT projects have recently become obligated to perform identity verification and KYC. This is in order to fulfill regulatory compliance in accordance with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) guidelines. Not following these guidelines can incur serious repercussions for web3 platforms.

For instance, in the month of July, the Indian Enforcement Directorate leveled serious charges against cryptocurrency exchanges in the country. Further, as per reports, domestic cryptocurrency exchanges in India were accused of violating KYC and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) regulations.