kontoIDer

KontoIDer is a concept in financial technology describing a universal, privacy-preserving identifier for bank accounts. The idea is to assign each account a stable identifier that can be used across banks, fintech apps, and payment networks without exposing the raw account number.

Purpose and benefits: It aims to enable interoperability between financial institutions and service providers, simplify payment initiation and reconciliation, and support data sharing with user consent. By decoupling services from actual account numbers, kontoIDer seeks to enhance privacy and reduce exposure of sensitive data.

Technical approach: kontoIDer would rely on cryptographic techniques to derive a pseudonymous account ID, potentially using salted hashes or tokenized representations. A governance layer would manage mappings between kontoIDer identifiers and the underlying accounts, while access to the mappings would be controlled by consent and strong authentication, using API-based interfaces and standards such as OAuth 2.0. Alignment with messaging standards like ISO 20022 for data formats is often discussed.

Status and adoption: kontoIDer is not a formal globally adopted standard. It appears mainly in speculative, academic, or pilot contexts, with regional experiments exploring account linking and cross-provider identity management under different names.

Security and privacy: Core considerations include preserving user privacy, preventing linkage attacks, and enforcing robust authorization and revocation. Implementations would require secure storage of mappings, least-privilege access, rigorous authentication, audit logging, and clear consent mechanisms.

See also: Open banking, PSD2, ISO 20022, account linking, tokenization.