Jennifer Scott, Head of Digital Banking Technology at NatWest for its commercial and institutional customer base, sees identity as the foundation the entire customer experience is built on, not a bolt-on control.

Her remit covers the digital platforms commercial and institutional customers use for everyday banking, including Bankline and its accounts and payments platform, as well as the tools NatWest’s own sales and relationship managers rely on to support those customers day to day. Across all of it, one thing keeps coming up: digital identity is what connects the interactions together.

“It’s really important to have that digital identity to connect all of our customer interactions across all our channels, products and services,” Jennifer says. Without it, a seamless omnichannel experience isn’t really possible. Customers end up navigating a fragmented digital infrastructure instead of one coherent relationship with the bank.

Jennifer breaks the problem down into three lenses: The first is seamless access. When a customer authenticates, that identity assertion needs to travel with them across the platform, so they’re not re-proving who they are every time they move between products and services.

The second is risk-based, adaptive authentication. Not every action a user takes carries the same risk, and modern identity technology lets NatWest calibrate the challenge to match the activity rather than applying a flat level of friction regardless of what’s actually happening.

The third is delegated self-service administration. Commercial and institutional customers want to manage their own users’ access and entitlements in real time, and that’s only possible with identity infrastructure built to support it.

Put together, Jennifer argues, digital identity stops being a feature and becomes something closer to a foundational capability, one that signals trust, protects access, and makes the relationship between bank and customer effortless rather than effortful.

Take a look at the full interview below.