The Linux Foundation Announces the Launch of the OpenWallet Foundation to Strengthen Interoperability Between Digital Wallets
The European branch of the Linux Foundation has announced the formation of the OpenWallet Foundation (OWF), a new collaborative effort aimed at supporting interoperability between digital wallets through open-source software.
The Linux Foundation first announced plans to establish OWF in October 2022. About five months later, they spun out a regional organization called the Linux Foundation Europe, into which OWF was formally established. The organization aims to develop and promote the technological foundation for creating digital wallets, with a focus on interoperability, security, and privacy.
Digital wallet providers such as PayPal, Google, and Apple are known for enabling consumers to conduct financial transactions in stores and online, but digital wallets can be used to store any document, from student IDs to driver’s licenses. It is being used more and more for storage. In addition, burgeoning technologies such as the metaverse and crypto have made the use of digital wallets more and more widespread.
However, what these environments have in common is that existing digital wallets do not work well together. For example, people who love Apple Pay can’t send money to Google Pay. As such, OWF is embarking on an “open-source engine” to enable interoperable digital wallets for a variety of use cases, such as storing identities, payments, and personal credentials such as employment and education.
OWF’s mission is not to develop proprietary digital wallets, but to create an open-source technology foundation that anyone (mainly organizations and businesses) can use to create their digital wallets. This technology foundation consists of engines covering use cases such as identity, payments, and digital keys, aiming to be on par with the best available options in the industry.
OWF was the brainchild of Daniel Goldscheider, CEO of open banking startup Yes.com, and spearheaded the initial development of the project incorporated into the Linux Foundation.
“We are focused on the layer between standards and wallets, and our role model is just browser engines. So a lot is going on with HTML, JavaScript, audio codecs, video codecs, etc. So the same goes for the OpenWallet Foundation, the OpenWallet codebase, the OpenWallet architecture is not one. No,” said Goldscheider.
OWF is the latest in a similar effort launched by the Linux Foundation to bring interoperability to various industries. In December, he partnered with Meta, Microsoft, AWS, and TomTom in a move to counter Google’s map monopoly via the Overture Maps Foundation.
