A funny thing about being a foreigner is how you realize people take broken things for granted. I'm going to go out on a limb here claiming that the US has a pretty dumb banking system. I could talk about it all day, but right now I want to focus on a very particular piece of it: how to verify your identity online.

Erik Bernhardsson

The US identity verification system is fundamentally broken because it relies on Social Security Numbers as a secret, which are structurally weak and now widely exposed. Sweden's BankID offers a compelling alternative: a two-factor authentication system used by 75% of the population, backed by a small number of regulated banks that collaborated to build shared digital infrastructure. The author argues the US banking system is too fragmented and the federal government too passive for a similar solution to emerge, though state-level adoption (e.g., California DMV or tax authority) remains a slim possibility.

On the Equifax breach and how to really prevent identity theft