Trust has always been a critical element in enabling access to public and private services, and is shaped through layers of interactions – with the birth registration office, a healthcare provider, or a financial institution. It is built incrementally, through repeated interactions with systems that recognise, verify, and respond to individuals.
With digital public infrastructure (DPI) systems growing exponentially, interactions are becoming heavily mediated by technology. Access to essential services now depends on the ability to verify identity digitally in accurate, instant, manner, and at scale. This raises a critical question: how can digital systems replicate, and strengthen, the trust traditionally established through physical processes, while ensuring that no one is excluded?
Here’s where Verifiable Credentials (VCs) become significant. VCs are a foundational trust layer that enables secure, privacy-preserving, and portable identity verification across systems. When combined with inclusive, multi-channel service delivery, they offer a way to increase both trust and access.
In our previous article, we looked into how VCs decentralise trust by making credentials verifiable at the point of issuance. With this article, we examine how VCs — when deployed across multiple service channels — can ensure that individuals, regardless of their access to technology or digital literacy, are able to participate in the digital economy and access services with confidence.
“The real measure of service delivery lies in systems that are trusted by design and accessible by default. We have the responsibility of making sure that mutual trust and respect is built into every interaction, and that access does not depend upon a user’s context or capability.”
Sasikumar Ganesan, Head of Engineering – MOSIP
The Access Challenge: One System, Many Realities
Governments serve diverse populations with varying levels of access to technology. Variations in device ownership, connectivity, literacy, and physical access create layered barriers to service delivery. A digital system designed for a smartphone user in an urban centre cannot, by default, serve a farmer with a feature phone or an elderly resident in a remote area.
Without deliberate design choices, digitisation risks replicating, and even amplifying, existing exclusions.
A multi-channel approach recognises this diversity and responds with multi-channel architectures that meet people where they are:
USSD-based access enables feature phone users to interact with services without requiring internet connectivity. A farmer checking subsidy eligibility through a simple dial-in code is not an edge case – it is a core user scenario. Early implementations have shown increased uptake of benefits among such users when USSD verification is enabled.
Assisted service centres bridge capability gaps by supporting individuals who may not either own devices, or feel confident navigating digital systems. A senior resident enrolling in a welfare scheme with the help of a centre operator reflects how human interfaces remain essential in digital ecosystems.
Mobile applications offer convenience and autonomy for users who are digitally fluent, enabling services such as licence renewals or benefit tracking from home.
In-person and doorstep delivery continue to play a critical role in reaching populations with limited mobility or access, ensuring that the last mile is not left behind.
This multi-channel route allows us to design for equity – by aligning service delivery models with user realities, governments can lower barriers to entry, accelerate adoption, and enable meaningful participation in the digital ecosystem.
Embedding Trust: The Role of Verifiable Credentials
While access channels determine how people interact with systems, trust determines whether those interactions are accepted.
In physical systems, trust is often signalled through visible markers – a stamp, a signature, a laminated ID card. In digital systems, these cues must be reimagined.
Verifiable Credentials recreate this assurance in a digital form. They are cryptographically signed, tamper-evident credentials that can be instantly verified, establishing authenticity and provenance without requiring repeated validation from the issuing authority.
From a MOSIP perspective, VCs enable a shift from centralised, document-heavy verification to a more decentralised and efficient model:
This design embeds privacy and consent into the system itself, strengthening trust not just in institutions, but in the way systems operate.
The true value of VCs emerges when they are integrated into multi-channel service delivery models. Together, they couple trust with access.
Real-world implementations point to this potential. According to GCash, in the Philippines, PhilIDs and ePhilIDs (backed by verifiable credential frameworks through QR codes) account for 41% of valid IDs submitted by their users for account verification. This level of adoption reflects growing public trust in digitally verifiable identities.
Additionally, the National ID Philippines has enabled millions of Filipinos to open accounts, transact securely, and participate in the digital economy. A related effort with the Land Bank of the Philippines (LANDBANK) resulted in over 7.5 million new Basic Deposit Accounts, demonstrating how national digital ID systems powered by VCs can directly expand access to financial services, highlighting its transformative potential.
These outcomes indicate a bigger movement: when credentials are trusted across institutions and can be verified instantly, service delivery becomes faster, more seamless, and more inclusive.
For governments, this translates into:
- Streamlined verification processes and reduced administrative friction
- Faster grievance redressal and improved transparency
- Lower operational costs, including reduced reliance on paper-based audits
When trust and inclusivity go hand in hand, service delivery becomes not only more efficient but also more equitable for everyone.
A multi-channel approach teaches us that trust and inclusion must be built together. VCs ensure that what is presented is credible and secure. Multi-channel architecture ensures that everyone, regardless of their circumstances, can participate.
Together, they bridge the gap between systems and the populations they serve – across mobile, web, assisted, USSD, and offline modes.
As governments continue to build and scale DPI, the opportunity lies in designing systems that are not only efficient, but also equitable, where trust is embedded by design, and access is universally enabled.
