LONDON, UK, 13 August 2025 – Checkout.com, a leading global digital payments company, today unveils new data showing that consumers in Asia, the Middle East, and parts of Africa are rapidly embracing digital identity wallets and biometric verification, closely followed by Brazil and New Zealand. Meanwhile, adoption remains sluggish across Europe, including the UK, and North America.
The findings, drawn from Checkout.com’s Trust in the Digital Economy 2025 report, a global survey of 18,000 consumers across 16 countries, highlight a trust gap in how people perceive and adopt digital ID solutions around the world. While digital identity is already becoming a foundational layer of online commerce, the research shows that attitudes vary significantly by region, influenced by cultural norms, regulatory environments, and exposure to emerging technologies. Meanwhile, the rise of agentic commerce, where AI-powered agents can act or shop on behalf of consumers, is set to make the verification of shopper identity even more critical.
In markets such as Egypt, the UAE, and China, a majority of consumers not only express confidence in biometric and digital ID systems but actively seek out merchants and services that offer these experiences. In Egypt, 68% of consumers say they trust digital identity as a secure payment method, with a staggering 74% also trusting AI tools to assist in their transactions. In the UAE, 63% of consumers express interest in using a digital ID wallet. And in China, biometric authentication is widely used, with 69% of consumers saying they prefer facial or fingerprint ID over passwords at checkout.
New Zealand and Brazil also rank highly for digital ID trust. In New Zealand, 55% of consumers are open to digital ID wallets and 61% trust biometrics, placing it among the most trusting developed economies. Brazil shows similar levels, with 52% and 57% respectively, driven by a booming fintech ecosystem, widespread Pix adoption, and a young, digitally fluent population.
By contrast, consumers in Europe and North America show far greater hesitation. In the UK, only 32% of consumers say they trust digital ID, with concerns about deepfakes and facial recognition cited as top barriers. In France and Germany, trust in digital ID systems remains below 30%, reflecting a cultural caution around technologies that centralise or store personal identity data. Both markets place a high value on privacy and data protection, which has led to resistance toward tools like digital ID wallets and biometric verification.
Meanwhile, younger demographics globally present a more optimistic picture. 60% of Gen Z consumers believe their digital identity will become their primary way to pay online in the near future. But the gap between generational readiness and policy frameworks in some countries risks deepening the global divide in adoption.
“Global commerce requires trust in order to function. Just as we worked across the ecosystem to build confidence in online payments and verify the identity of shoppers when ecommerce first emerged, we must now apply the same focus to digital identity,” said Rory O’Neill, CMO at Checkout.com. "For the adoption of digital commerce, and in time agentic commerce, to continue to flourish, the industry and policymakers must prioritise how digital identity is managed. If trust isn’t earned now, the digital divide will only deepen"