News Release 

City of London Corporation 

 07 May 2026 
 

EMBARGOED UNTIL 00:01 08/05/2026

Tech firms invited to lead fightback against fraud 

• City of London Corporation is calling on tech firms to build a new digital verification service to lead the fightback against fraud
• New digital infrastructure will make fraud easier to detect, while reducing administrative costs, and streamlining consumers access to services
• Nearly £5 billion of benefits in fraud mitigation and digital modernisation could be achieved through the new service

The City of London Corporation, through its digital verification initiative, is calling on tech firms to input into a blueprint to support the development of digital verification services that will lead the financial sector’s fightback against fraud and protect consumers.

The digital verification service is proposed as a voluntary system that securely connects identity providers with other financial services businesses requiring identity checks.

Under the proposed model, individuals would verify their identity once with a trusted provider. That verification could then be securely reused by other financial services organisations who would support secure data transmission to confirm their identity via the orchestrator, reducing the duplication and administrative burden for firms and consumers.

Once implemented, the verification orchestrator will play a crucial role in detecting and preventing fraud, including by leveraging cryptographically verified identities. Once suspected fraud is flagged on the network, the system will flag this to other firms, limiting fraudsters entry points into the financial system.

A successful verification system could unlock what the City Corporation estimates as £5 billion in economic benefits over a five-year period, driven by fraud prevention and improvements to digital infrastructure.

This work supports the City Corporation’s wider efforts to tackle fraud, including its role as police authority for the City of London Police, which leads national policing response on fraud, cyber and economic crime and is working to strengthen prevention, improve reporting and help protect victims of fraud across the UK.

The City Corporation is committed to a whole‑system response, bringing together financial services, technology, government and policing to prevent fraud, disrupt criminal networks and protect the public, in order to strengthen the UK’s economic security.

Policy Chairman of the City of London Corporation, Chris Hayward said: 

“Fraud is a plague on banks’ balance sheets, costing them over £1 billion last year. To help mitigate this – we need a digital-first economy that instils trust in the system and delivers clear benefits to consumers through faster, safer, and more seamless access to financial services. It’s this conviction that has motivated our work to champion the development and introduction of a digital verification service. 

“Innovation enables new dangers - but it also solves them too. We’re asking companies who can provide this infrastructure to step forward and lead the sector’s fightback against fraud.”,

Ezechi Britton MBE, Chair of the Digital Verification Orchestrator (DVO) Initiative

“Fraud thrives on fragmentation, and the Digital Verification Orchestrator (DVO) Initiative is about fixing that - giving the financial sector a modern, interoperable way to verify identity once and reuse it securely across the system.

“This is a clear opportunity for technology firms to help scale UK-wide digital infrastructure that delivers real-world impact: cutting fraud, reducing friction for consumers, and lowering costs for firms. We are looking for organisation with the capability and ambition to help turn this into a functioning, trusted service for the UK economy.”

Alderman Sushil Saluja, Vice-Chair of the Digital Verification Orchestrator (DVO) Initiative

The Digital Verification Orchestrator model offers a pragmatic way forward - advancing a trust layer so firms can verify identity more securely, while making everyday interactions quicker and safer for consumers. By bringing together industry, innovators, and public authorities, we are creating the conditions for technology to be deployed responsibly and at scale in the fight against fraud.

Notes to editors

• Calls for input close on Thursday 14 May. Firms can demonstrate their capabilities and input here: Financial Expertise | Professional Talent | Growth Opportunities …

1. Context and purpose

The Digital Verification Orchestrator (DVO) Initiative has been developed by the City of London Corporation (CoLC) to progress a viable DVO model capable of supporting trusted digital verification at scale, particularly within financial services.  The work builds on extensive engagement with industry and government and the statutory baseline provided by the DSIT Digital Verification Services (DVS) Trust Framework.

The primary output of the DVO Initiative is publication of a blueprint which will clarify the responsibilities of the DVO as well as setting out what credentials an entity fulfilling this role will need to demonstrate.  It will also highlight existing market capability in this area and what next steps are required to scale the DVO model to support UK financial services.  Early work on the blueprint has been informed by discussions with organisations operating across financial services, specifically through the formation of a Working Group and Steering Committee who are overseeing the work.Industry input is now sought from entities that are well placed to provide insight into the role of the DVO and to potentially fulfil that function.  The information provided will be used to inform the contents of the blueprint in defining the responsibilities and credentials of a DVO and, where appropriate, to highlight specific examples of existing market capability. 

2. The Digital Verification Orchestrator – role description

Core roles and responsibilities

Based on the work of the SteerCo and Working Group to date, a DVO is expected to be able to:

1. Apply and, as required, set minimum standards as part of an orchestration layer
   Define and maintain technical and performance standards and security controls for participants (including accreditation under the DSIT DVS Framework where applicable), ensuring interoperability with UK and international identity frameworks.
2. Enable secure, resilient data transfer
   Be accountable for the integrity, availability and performance of orchestration flows (eg connectivity, APIs, metadata exchange) and for evaluating emerging technologies and standards to enhance orchestration capabilities, without processing or storing personal data.
3. Facilitate stakeholder coordination to support trusted verification data flows
   Collaborate with those operating across the model and regulators to support effective identify verification including providing a process for resolving operational issues outside of bilateral commercial contracts.
4. Support non-discriminatory market participation
   Enable fair and non‑discriminatory access for identity providers and relying parties, avoiding exclusivity or structural market advantage.

By contrast, the DVO does not act as:

• a data store;
• quality assurance for data attributes, or
• a regulator.

DVO credentials

To fulfil this role, a DVO must be able to demonstrate:

• Alignment with the DSIT DVS Trust Framework;
• Examples of integrating at least three identity providers and verification services;
• Adherence to audit and compliance processes including Systems and Organisation Controls reports and security audits;
• Experience of ensuring interoperability between different identity verification systems and standards including compliance with eIDAS;
• Proven capability to design scalable and flexible orchestration solutions; and
• Success in managing complex identity verification projects or platforms.

It is also desirable for a DVO to demonstrate the following:

• Experience in service orchestration and ensuring high availability and reliability, including system redundancy and management of third-party suppliers;
• Compliance with Tier IV Data center infrastructure standard for availability and redundancy;
• Examples of working with multiple stakeholders including technology providers, financial services and regulators;
• Strong communication skills to explain technical and compliance requirements clearly;
• An innovative mindset to adopt emerging technologies and standards in digital identity verification;
• A clear funding plan and viable business model;
• Strength to act independently among all the parties including direct experience of building and managing governance models;
• Awareness of the Model Context Protocol and Agentic Context Protocol; and
• Experience of providing a dispute resolution process.

Priority use cases

The Initiative is particularly interested in the ability of a DVO model to support high‑value financial services use cases, including:

1. KYC and initial onboarding
2. Verification to enable access to credit
3. Ongoing verification to combat fraud reduction
4. Re‑use and portability of verified information across institutions

These use cases are being used to test whether proposed DVO models are viable in practice.

3. How to provide Industry Input

Responses should be submitted via the following Microsoft Forms link by 0930 on Thursday 14 May..

Please note that respondents are not asked to provide any pricing, commercial terms, financial forecasts or other commercially sensitive information.  This is not a tendering or procurement process, but an opportunity to support the DVO Initiative by providing feedback on work carried out to date and to help demonstrate existing market capability in this area.

4. Use of information and next steps

Responses will be used to:

• Inform refinement of the DVO blueprint;
• Identify which organisations appear well placed to demonstrate existing market capability for a DVO; and
• Shape further targeted industry engagement (eg presentations or bilateral discussions).

Please note that the information provided may be shared with members of the DVO Initiative Working Group and SteerCo.  We may also contact organisations submitting Industry Input to partake in further discussions, provide further feedback on the blueprint and/or take part in meetings or other events relating to the project.  Any engagement with and/or reference to entities that have responded to provide Industry Input does not imply endorsement by City of London Corporation or any other organisations involved with the DVO Initiative.