The OpenID Foundation has launched a new eKYC work item aimed at making mobile driver’s licenses stored on smartphones into legally defensible identity credentials for financial institutions, responding to a NIST draft practice guide that seeks to accelerate bank adoption of phone-based ID.
The NIST document, SP 1800-42, was published as an initial public draft on March 18, 2026. It lays out security and compliance frameworks for U.S. banks to verify customer identities by reading an mDL from a smartphone wallet, rather than relying on a scanned physical ID card. The public comment period closes May 8. The guidance was developed with 29 collaborators, including state DMVs that issue mobile credentials, wallet providers, and ISO/IEC SC17 WG10, the group that maintains the mDL standard.
The OpenID Foundation’s new work item addresses a gap the NIST guide leaves open: how a bank’s back-end systems can trust the identity data that arrives from a phone wallet during onboarding. The work item extends the OpenID Identity Assurance Schema and the Connect for IDA Claims Registration specifications, defining machine-readable ways to convey assurance levels from the DMV that issued the credential to the bank relying on it. The goal is to give institutions a defensible basis under rules such as the Bank Secrecy Act’s Customer Identification Program requirements when accepting a wallet-presented mDL in place of a physical document check.
Dima Postnikov, Vice Chair of the OpenID Foundation, described the work as foundational for phone-based credentials generally. “Globally, many financial institutions, telecommunications providers, and companies in other regulated industries are preparing to begin accepting MDLs,” Postnikov said. “This report from NIST and a new work item in the eKYC working group are important pieces of work, not just for MDL adoption but for any credential and for digital identity reliance in general.”
The initiative builds on existing mobile credential infrastructure. An ISO/IEC standard published in late 2024 established OpenID for Verifiable Presentations as one of the core protocols for online mDL presentation from a phone to a relying party. The NCCoE project behind SP 1800-42 has been assembling its industry cohort since 2024, with IDEMIA, SpruceID, and MATTR among the named mDL project partners. The new work item slots into the OpenID Foundation’s broader conformance testing program, which targets 38 jurisdictions rolling out digital identity wallets over the next several years.
Sources: OpenID Foundation, NIST CSRC
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By the Mobile ID World Editorial Team
