The OpenID Foundation has completed conformance test suites for two of its most widely deployed specifications, OpenID for Verifiable Presentations (OpenID4VP) and OpenID for Verifiable Credential Issuance (OpenID4VCI), and opened both for self-certification. The move gives wallet providers, credential issuers, verifiers, government agencies and technology vendors a free, publicly recognised mechanism to demonstrate that their implementations meet the High Assurance Interoperability Profile (HAIP) rather than simply asserting compliance.
The specifications are already the foundation of digital identity programmes across more than 30 jurisdictions, including the UK, Switzerland, India and the member states of the European Union through the EU Digital Identity Wallet programme. Until this announcement, organisations could implement the specs but had no independent third-party route to verify that their systems would interoperate with others or satisfy the security requirements built into HAIP.
What the tests cover
Under OpenID4VP, organisations can self-certify as a wallet or as a verifier or relying party. Under OpenID4VCI, certification covers issuers and wallet providers, with dedicated test profiles for each role. Both suites were validated through multiple rounds of real-world interoperability testing, achieving pass rates above 90% for OpenID4VP and 87% for OpenID4VCI, before the Foundation’s Digital Credentials Protocols Working Group confirmed them as ready in July 2026. The tests can be run free of charge using Foundation-hosted infrastructure or on an organisation’s own systems. Once an implementation passes, the Foundation publishes the results publicly.
Gail Hodges, executive director of the OpenID Foundation, said: “Until now, there has been no independent way for governments, regulators or ecosystem partners to verify that different implementations of OpenID for Verifiable Presentations and OpenID for Verifiable Credential Issuance would actually work together or meet the security requirements built into these specifications. This conformance programme changes that.”
Several organisations that participated in the interoperability testing programme welcomed the launch, including Google, SpruceID, Authlete and Meeco, which contributed to both specification development and the test infrastructure.
Regulatory read-across and market context
The programme follows the same model as OpenID Connect and the FAPI security profile, both of which are already embedded in open banking ecosystems globally. Brazil’s trajectory is instructive: FAPI certification began as a voluntary programme before becoming a mandated condition of participation in its open banking ecosystem. The same pattern could repeat here. The Foundation said it is in active dialogue with the EU Digital Identity Wallet ecosystem and other jurisdictions about how its open-source conformance tools can support local requirements.
For organisations building in the identity space, the commercial signal is clear. Regulators in the EU and the UK are already leaning on the OpenID4VC specifications as the technical baseline for high-assurance digital identity. Where voluntary certification leads, mandatory certification typically follows. Organisations that self-certify early will be listed publicly on the Foundation’s website and will be the reference point for ecosystem partners evaluating interoperability. Those that wait risk being at a disadvantage when a regulator, a government procurement body or a large relying party makes certification a condition of participation. The Foundation is calling on all implementers of OpenID4VP, OpenID4VCI and HAIP to self-certify now.
The post OpenID Foundation Opens Conformance Testing for Digital Identity Wallets appeared first on The Fintech Times.
