CASE STUDY NTT Digital
NTT Digital and Accenture are rebuilding trust and bridging the gap between physical and digital experiences with Universal Wallet Infrastructure
3-MINUTE READ
December 19, 2024
In today's digital landscape, trust is becoming increasingly elusive. According to the Accenture Life Trends 2025 Report, 33% of people have experienced deep-fake attacks or scams designed to steal their personal information and/or money. And 62% said that trust is critical when engaging with a brand. How can companies regain –- and retain –- their customers’ trust when it’s easier than ever to lose it?
A universal wallet that allows you to securely share your digital identity, money and other data with businesses could be the answer to enhancing personal and professional experiences, while also protecting privacy.
Consider Sarah, a frequent traveler who is planning her next big trip. She spends hours searching for the best hotel, airline and insurance offers, wishing there was a faster, easier way to manage everything without sacrificing her data to unknown third parties. With an interconnected universal wallet, Sarah regains agency over her digital experiences through tokenized versions of her digital identity (e.g. passport, driver’s license), money (traditional or crypto currencies) and objects (e.g. plane tickets, digital music). This enables Sarah to manage all her data in one place, while controlling which data businesses and service providers have access to, ensuring safety and security.
In an era where digital privacy is crucial, Sarah's interconnected digital wallet offers a secure solution. Because the wallet stores tokenized versions of her data, it gives Sarah a safe way to manage her digital identity, money and objects.
Traveling with complete peace of mind is now possible. Sarah can safely and conveniently share information with travel service providers. She decides what they see, for what purpose, and for how long, ensuring privacy and control over her data.
Imagine a world where brands truly understand you. The universal wallet allows Sarah’s favorite brands to gain deep insights about her preferences. By accessing the data she shares, they can provide hyper-personalized experiences.
This vision for a user-centric digital experience will soon become a reality, through a partnership between Web3.0 technology company NTT Digital (a subsidiary of NTT DOCOMO, one of the world’s largest telecommunications infrastructure providers) and Accenture. Together, we are developing Universal Wallet Infrastructure (UWI) to provide the foundational services and capabilities that will enable dynamic and secure data sharing between individuals and enterprises, revolutionizing digital trust and ownership.
Most digital wallets today are single purpose, offered by a merchant or brand for a specific use (e.g. identity, payments, rewards). This limits multi-purpose applications, such as a digital wallet capable of storing verified identity credentials and holding digital assets. The evolution to multi-purpose universal wallets powered by UWI will be groundbreaking, enabling seamless experiences among businesses and individuals, and based on open standards.
With NTT Digital’s cryptography expertise, global data center network and cybersecurity capabilities backed by NTT Group, combined with Accenture’s mastery and deep skills in blockchain, AI, strategy and creative design, we are well-positioned to lead this digital evolution.
Accenture helped lay the groundwork for UWI—from developing the vision, business strategy and technical architecture with NTT Digital’s executive leadership, to validating the concept through client workshops across the globe. While continuing to build, test and develop the UX and UI, we are already engaging with standards and regulatory bodies, and building a community of frontrunners that share our vision.
In less than a year, we have signed Letters of Intent with 10 early adopters—diverse industry leaders that share our vision. Their valued expertise and insights help ensure that we can meet the diverse needs of users and businesses alike. These organizations can see how, through trusted access to customer data, UWI will lead to the development of new user-centric business strategies that will power future revenue and data-led growth. UWI will create a vibrant, interconnected data economy, enabling AI systems to access rich data, fostering new opportunities for AI and personal AI proliferation.
So how will UWI work? Remember Sarah? Her passport, plane tickets, membership cards and reservations are now stored in her universal wallet. When she gets to her destination, her ride share driver is notified of her plane’s arrival in real time, and the hotel receives her updated ETA. This allows the hotel to check her in early, enabling her to go straight to her room and unlock it with a virtual key sent to her wallet. In her room is her favorite meal, a frequent flyer reward courtesy of seamless data exchange between her airline and the hotel behind-the-scenes.
Over time, Sarah’s UWI-powered wallet will evolve into her personal AI assistant. It will analyze past trips to proactively suggest personalized deals and itineraries. In the future, UWI will be embedded with agentic AI, systems that act intelligently and independently, to automate more complex tasks such as automatic form-filling, management of financials or rebooking flights or hotels.
These kinds of seamless experiences will happen beyond travel. For instance, organizations can use UWI to verify employee credentials (e.g. school certifications, personal data and work experience) to improve talent onboarding and management. Or, individuals can use UWI to securely share their medical records with healthcare providers, enhancing patient care.
UWI will start with core identity solutions, allowing users to create, store, share and organize verifiable credentials. This will be followed by data exchange capabilities, enabling multiple parties to join the network to issue data, like educational institutions providing digital documents (e.g. degrees, certificates), and use data, including employers accessing a potential hire’s educational background or work experience. Finally, a beta release of the interoperable wallet will support broader use cases, including travel, loyalty and financial services.
By bridging the critical gap between trust and seamless data management, and physical and digital worlds, UWI is set to be a market game-changer. Industry leaders from sectors such as financial services, travel, insurance and education have already partnered with us to explore UWI's potential, demonstrating the scale of the impact it stands to make in the future. Together, we are setting a new standard for everyday interactions, paving the way for a more secure, efficient, and user-centric digital landscape.
