Interoperability was one of the most frequently heard words in Geneva this week. Over three days at the Global Digital Collaboration Conference, governments, standards organizations, open-source communities, technology companies and civil-society representatives examined how digital wallets, credentials and identity systems can work across institutional and national boundaries. The discussions brought another, less visible part of the same problem into focus for me: verification.

A digital credential has little practical value if the organization receiving it cannot quickly establish that it is authentic. A bank opening an account, an employer reviewing a professional qualification, a university accepting an academic credential or a border authority checking a digital document eventually reaches the same point. Someone has presented a piece of verified information. The receiving organization now must determine whether the credential is genuine, has it been altered, did it come from the authority it claims it comes from and whether it remains valid. This sounds like an implementation detail. In practice, it may determine whether the emerging wallet ecosystem works at scale.

I attended the Global Digital Collaboration Conference representing The RegTech and held digital transformation discussions with permanent missions to the United Nations on the sidelines of the meeting. The setting was particularly appropriate. Geneva has long provided neutral ground for institutions that approach the same international problems from very different perspectives, and the conference followed that tradition. Standardization bodies, governments, technology companies, open-source organizations and civil society were discussing infrastructure that none of them can establish independently.

There was considerable attention to wallets, credential formats, interoperability, open standards and governance. This is understandable. Governments around the world are moving from conventional digital identification toward systems in which individuals........

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