Kakao Developing DID Certification Service

Kakao, run by Daum Kakao in South Korea, and the company behind enterprise blockchain Klaytn, have begun developing digital identification (DID) certification services to be used across the entire suite of services and apps offered by Kakao.

Today Kakao announced that they formed an ID Card TF team of 27 people under Taeksoo Kim, Kakao’s CSO.

The specific plan of the new DID program was not disclosed in full, but it is likely that since Kakao already offers a number of fintech services such as KakaoPay and KakaoBank, that the DID service will allow users to seamlessly verify payments on the Kakao platform with a single log-in.

This could also reduce financial barriers facing users who may be required to prove minimum available funds on both financial services by not requiring them to provide such redundant proof with a cross-platform certification service.

Furthermore, the ID card TF team is meant to expand the uses of a single user’s authentication environment in mobile apps.

There is also the prospect that Kakao aims to establish a working ‘lock-in effect’ for users of any one of their services, likely their messaging service which nearly every Korean uses. The lock-in effect refers to a phenomenon where a user stays on an existing product or service without switching to a newer, similar service.

If Kakao establishes an integrated ID system that can authenticate all services with one KakaoTalk ID, users will not have to go through multiple identity verification procedures.

Kakao Pay already operates the Kakao Pay certification service which simplifies the complex financial certification process. A similar certification service could be applied across the entire Kakao suite of services.

One official close to the project says that Kakao is researching blockchain-based identity verification, just how KakaoPay is using blockchain for their DID service.