Verifiable Credentials for MSMEs in the Dominican Republic

Promoting private sector formalization, efficiency and financial inclusion in the Dominican Republic

1- What is the Verifiable Credentials for MSMEs project?

The Verifiable Credentials for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) is a pilot project designed to provide digital identity and verifiable credentials to small companies in the Dominican Republic. Its primary goal is to enable these businesses to access public services in a secure, agile, and interoperable way.

This initiative is part of the Public Services Transformation Program, led by the Ministry of Public Administration (MAP), through the Vice Ministries of Innovation and Technology and Public Services, in partnership with the World Bank, the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and MSMEs (MICM), and the Association of Full-Service Banks of the Dominican Republic (ABA).  The initiative envisions a completely digitalized productive sector by which all MSMEs have a recognized digital identity and verifiable credentials.

2- What does this pilot project provide?

MSMEs in the Dominican Republic account for 38% of the country’s GDP and 54.5% of total employment. However, more than 85% of small business in the Dominican Republic are informal; and, 45% of the population remains unbanked. Additionally, MSMEs face significant administrative burdens: legal documentation can take more than 15 days, and registering a new company typically requires 20 to 30 days.

The pilot project aims to shorten the lengthy process for new companies in the Dominican Republic to obtain all required legal documents. This includes completing the commercial registry and the company’s bylaws, securing a tax ID number, and formalizing the constitutional act.

The pilot project adopts verifiable credentials within a common trust infrastructure to streamline the opening of a new bank account. The process is described as follows:

• An ID issuer provides a verifiable credential for the MSME, stored in a digital wallet.
• Additional credentials, such as tax ID, commercial registry, bylaws, and the constitutional act, are also stored in the wallet.
• The wallet supports selective disclosure and can be integrated with the government’s official wallet (carpeta ciudadana) or any other compatible solution.
• With these credentials, MSMEs can present verified information to government entities and financial institutions, accelerating authorization and account opening.

3- How is the pilot project managed?

The pilot project is governed through a structured model that includes three key bodies.

An advisory board provides strategic guidance and expertise to support technology design, implementation, and scale-up. Members include the World Wide Web Consortium, the Centre for Digital Public Infrastructure, and gov.br.

The second body is the Pilot Governance Committee, which acts as the decision-making body, defining strategic direction, scope, and ensuring compliance with regulations. It includes the following entities: the MAP, the MICM, the ABA, the chambers of commerce, the Government Office of Information and Communication Technologies, the General Directorate of Internal Taxes, the Superintendency of Banks, the Dominican Institute of Telecommunications, and the World Bank.

Complementing these, the third body, the Pilot Technical Committee, focuses on technical architecture, development, testing, and user experience and user interface, with tech teams assigned by the governance committee members.

4- Roadmap 

The pilot project follows the schedule:

This collaboration among the MAP, the MICM, the ABA, and the World Bank reflects a shared commitment to building secure, inclusive, and scalable Digital Public Infrastructure. By enabling verifiable credentials for MSMEs, the initiative not only drives economic formalization and financial inclusion in the Dominican Republic but also establishes a replicable model that can be scaled across the Latin America and Caribbean region, fostering regional integration and innovation.