Singapore – Affinidi has begun a pilot initiative aimed at strengthening global and regional interoperability by supporting smoother cross-border movement of trade, assets, and talent using verifiable digital credentials.
The programme, developed in collaboration with Singapore’s Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) and employment background screening firms, focuses on establishing a reusable credential framework for talent corridors.
The initiative responds to long-standing challenges within recruitment processes, where background screening providers typically depend on manual verification procedures that can take between 5-15 days. These extended timelines increase operational costs, slow hiring cycles, and elevate exposure to fraudulent submissions, an issue highlighted by industry projections that a significant proportion of hiring profiles could be falsified in the coming years.
“We’re not just solving hiring inefficiencies, we’re creating the foundation for a trust-based digital economy,” Glenn Gore, CEO of Affinidi, stated.
He added, “What starts with employment verification between India and Singapore demonstrates how the same can be applied to transform access to healthcare, financial services, education, and beyond.”
Affinidi’s approach turns background screening results into cryptographically secured, verifiable credentials that individuals can keep in digital wallets. This removes the need for candidates to submit the same documents repeatedly to different employers and reduces verification time from weeks to minutes.
The model effectively creates a reusable professional profile that remains under the individual’s control while supporting employers with faster and more reliable verification.
The system is built on W3C standards for verifiable credentials and decentralised identifiers, allowing for tamper-evident proof of authenticity. Its interoperable design is intended to reduce integration requirements, support scalability and lower the administrative burden associated with traditional hiring workflows.
“The use of digital verifiable credentials has the ability to further engender trust and ensure that the best talent pools can be identified and tapped,” Chek-Tchung Foo, executive director of public policy at GFTN, stated.
“This will also unlock new pathways towards the seamless flow of talent and skills across borders, which will power us towards the long-term objective of accelerating and modernising economies.”
Affinidi is also working with several established background screening providers, including Avvanz, eeCheck and Risk Management Intelligence, to reframe how employment verification is conducted across borders.
The pilot is expected to support the shift of screening companies from single-transaction service providers to ongoing verification partners within a broader digital ecosystem.
By laying the groundwork for trusted cross-border authentication, the programme aims to enable individuals, businesses, and their networks to operate with greater assurance in international settings.
The initiative also aligns with wider digital transformation efforts that seek to streamline access to global talent and enhance the efficiency of economic activity across markets.
