An Affinidi for secure technology

Singapore

WHAT does it mean to own your data? In an age where social media giants churn insights about their users and organisations tap digital means to easily collect personal information, individual data is getting increasingly scattered across platforms.

It's creating a hotbed of challenges for consumers. The average person doesn't fully know how their data is being stored, shared and monetised. Temasek-founded Affinidi wants to help people reclaim ownership of their digital identities. It's building technology that allows personal credentials to be verifiable, cryptographically secure, and easily shared only when needed.

"We fundamentally believe that there are entirely new business models that are created from that disruptive shift," said chief executive officer Glenn Gore, who left his chief architect role at Amazon Web Services to head Affinidi.

"And I think this has been borne out by history. When you look over the last 30 years, every time we have made access to information easier, it has fuelled incredible ways of innovation."

Affinidi launched a product for organisations to verify the digital health credentials of travellers. It can verify Covid-19 digital credentials from over 2,000 healthcare labs from across the world. It also reads Covid-19 health certificates from Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, the European Union, Bangladesh, Israel and India.

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The company is running pilot programmes with airlines across the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, including Singapore Airlines, EVA Air, ANA and Etihad Airways.

Affinidi also sees an opportunity for their technology to help make financial services more efficient and inclusive.

Trust forms the cornerstone of any financial service or transaction, said Varsha Jagdale, general manager of financial services.

"It's the lack of trust that causes all of these processes, whether you're talking about a KYC (know-your-customer) or a background check, or looking at all the documents that a small business needs to provide to a bank in order to approve a loan," she said.

Verifiable credentials can help financial institutions cut down the time and effort required to assess a potential customer or partner. Small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs), in particular, could get better access to loans via a verifiable snapshot of their documents and information.

Affinidi also provides the decentralised technology for Trustana and GoodWorker, two companies that are grouped with Affinidi under parent company LemmaTree. India-based GoodWorker connects blue-collar workers with potential employers in India. The workers are equipped with a verifiable digital profile, giving employers confidence in the authenticity of their employment credentials.

Trustana is a Singapore-based crossborder marketplace that connects buyers and suppliers. Its initial focus was to serve SMEs in China and Singapore but it intends to expand globally.

These companies are some of the in-house startups Temasek has been building. Besides Affinidi, it launched artificial intelligence venture Aicadium (which recently acquired AI startup BasisAI), and cyber risk management company Istari.

"Temasek has been very successful as an investment organisation, but... they've got ideas and visions, and one of their big visions is a more connected future," said Gore.

Building startups instead of just investing in them is a way of having skin in the game and "an earlier representation of" the vision.

"We're very proud to be one of the first Temasek ventures being built and proving that Singapore can create world-class technology organisations at a global level," said Gore.

For all our coverage of the Singapore FinTech Festival 2021, go to bt.sg/sff2021.