Making financial services more accessible, efficient
In 2025’s annual letter to investors, Blackrock chairman and CEO Larry Fink set out a vision for his company but also for the world in a prophetic view of capital and investment.
Noting that these are anxious times, with fears and worries over the economy, Fink outlined a strategic vision. Framed with a historical look at the invention of the publicly traded stock market, Fink sees the future with a certain boldness.
Bold because the key message appears to be that companies like BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, will be instrumental to infrastructure development when investment in such projects, which typically require enormous amounts of capital, is traditionally the preserve of governments.
Fink also wants to open up the private market. How? By indexing like it does with the S&P 500, the private markets will be “accessible, simple markets,” according to the chairman, which will be “easy to buy” and “easy to track.” It is a long, detailed, and perceptive letter that is worth reading in its entirety, and in it Fink mentions decentralized finance, tokenization and identity verification.
On decentralized finance, Fink calls it “an extraordinary invention” that makes markets “faster, cheaper, and more transparent” while noting it poses risks to U.S. dollar hegemony as investors might start to see Bitcoin as the safer haven. Tokenization meanwhile can democratize asset trading, in Fink’s view. But there’s a critical problem, he writes, and that’s identity verification.
“The takeaway is clear,” Fink writes. “If we’re serious about building an efficient and accessible financial system, championing tokenization alone won’t suffice. We must solve digital verification, too.” The full 2025 Blackrock letter can be read here.
Solving digital verification, reducing fraud
This is where digital identity, security, and biometrics companies come in with new solutions announced every month, every year. A new login solution from Trustfull is designed to combat the $13 billion account takeover (ATO) problem.
ATO attacks occur when bad actors gain unauthorized access to existing accounts to steal users’ stored payment details, funds and digital identities. These attacks are increasing year-over-year, by as much as 24 percent, and leading to nearly $13 billion being lost annually.
Trustfull’s new Login Solution analyzes “hundreds of behavioral and device-related signals” according to the company to combat surging ATO fraud. During the login enrollment phase, Trustfull records a segment of the user’s behavioral patterns and device characteristics. At every subsequent login, new data is compared against the original enrolment to assess similarity. This enables instant verification for genuine users while flagging when additional checks are needed.
“To strengthen ATO protection, we have developed a lightweight JavaScript SDK that combines OSINT data on returning users’ device, browser, and IP information with unique behavioral signals, like keystroke dynamics and mouse movements,” says Trustfull chief technology officer Francesco Panina.
In another new development, digital banking solutions provider Blend Labs has partnered with Prove Identity. The digital identity verification and authentication company will allow direct integration resulting in Blend leveraging the Prove Pre-Fill solution to accelerate digital onboarding for lenders on Blend’s consumer banking platform.
Prove Identity’s Prove Pre-Fill pre-populates application forms with verified identity information, reducing the time it takes for both lenders and consumers to input data and thereby speeding up the onboarding process.
“Through our partnership with Blend, we’ve modernized the financial application process — making onboarding and verification streamlined and frictionless for consumers, banks, and lenders while reducing fraud,” says Rich Rezek, Head of Banking Solutions at Prove. “This collaboration is a step forward in building a more efficient, accurate, and trusted financial ecosystem.”
Co-founder and head of Blend Nima Ghamsari commented that “efficiency, innovation and security” converged with the Prove partnership to make it easier for consumers to access financing.
In Canada, decentralized identity solutions provider Proof Of ID has integrated with Open Banking company Equifax. The partnership allows for the integration of Proof Of ID’s decentralized, user-controlled platform into Equifax’s trusted verification data.
When a consumer chooses to share their digital ID, for profile validation or KYC checks, the process is encrypted, tokenized and validated in real time against Equifax’s authoritative records. “Open Banking thrives on trust,” commented François Roukoz, founder of Proof Of ID. “Our integration with Equifax gives FIs a powerful tool to verify identities faster, cut fraud, and stay compliant, all while putting consumers in the driver’s seat.”
Proof Of ID aims to “empower” users with portable, verifiable digital ID that is shareable on demand and backed by Equifax’s “gold-standard” data.
Blackrock boss believes digital verification is key in vision for capital investment
