Australia’s largest credit union, Credit Union Australia (CUA), will become the first financial institution to trial Australia Post’s new digital identity verification service, Digital iD.

The service will enable online applicants for CUA accounts to verify their identity in minutes without multiple forms of identification, effectively bypassing in-branch applications.

CUA will be the first of four organisations to pilot the online and mobile identity verification service across their banking services, foreign currency, outsourcing of tasks and police checks.

The credit union will be joined by Airtasker, a job outsourcing site, Travelex, a foreign exchange company, and the Queensland Police Service in adopting AusPost’s verification platform. The service is expected to be launched later this year.

“Digital iD allows people to verify their identity information once, so they can then easily prove who they are online and in person through the platform’s smartphone app,“ Australia Post said in a release. “This removes the need for Australians to repeatedly use several forms of identity to prove who they are or have numerous passwords to access products and services.”

CUA chief digital officer, Sue Coulter, said CUA has worked closely with Australia Post for a number of months to co-develop the Digital iD solution.

“By leveraging Australia Post’s innovation and their expertise in identity verification, CUA is making it possible for even more members to join CUA quickly and easily, either online or from their mobile device,” Coulter said.

“As a member-owned organisation, there is a lot of benefit in us collaborating with a large organisation like Australia Post, allowing us to use their expertise to bring innovations like this to members much sooner than if we were to develop them ourselves.”

Australia Post Executive General Manager Trusted eCommerce Services, Andrew Walduck, said impediments in the existing identity verification processes were not only time-consuming, but also a significant cost burden to the Australian economy, estimated to be upwards of $11 billion a year.

“That’s why we have developed the safe and secure Digital iD™ platform, so people can prove who they say they are when they are interacting online with government and private sector organisations,” Walduck said.

Australia Post has already integrated the Digital iD system within their own products and services, including MyPost Parcel Collect and the Post’s Mail Redirection Services.