The partnership brings cheqd’s decentralised identity infrastructure to VERA’s encrypted B2B messaging platform, enabling instant, verified communication for companies in South Africa and globally.
VERA, a secure B2B communications platform, has partnered with cheqd, a leader in decentralised identity and credential infrastructure, to deliver trusted digital identity and secure messaging for businesses in South Africa and beyond. VERA is conducting a beta launch as of June 1st, tailored for South African companies, with a full MVP rollout expected by the end of August 2025. This collaboration enables a verifiable digital ID ecosystem that empowers businesses to communicate and transact with confidence.
“VERA solves a genuine problem which affects ourselves and every company worldwide: invoice manipulation fraud. Every week we receive invoices by email attempting to defraud us. VERA’s solution ensures that every company and individual on the platform are verified. This is a great step towards our mission where verified identity is seamlessly built into the fabric of how companies interact and collaborate,” said Fraser Edwards, Co-founder and CEO of cheqd, commented.
As digital fraud and impersonation continue to grow, particularly in business communications and payments, trust has become a critical differentiator. VERA is building a platform that combines strong encryption with verifiable digital credentials (VCs), allowing businesses to protect sensitive conversations while instantly verifying who they’re dealing with.
By integrating cheqd’s advanced decentralised identity infrastructure, including support for Verifiable Credentials (VCs), AnonCreds, and DID-linked resources, VERA will enable trusted interactions at scale. This partnership unlocks the potential for businesses to onboard new suppliers, exchange critical documents, and share fraud-resistant invoices, all while proving the legitimacy of their counterparties in real time. This is especially impactful for industries like construction, procurement, and finance, where trust and timing are critical.
“At VERA, we believe secure communication should also be verifiable. cheqd’s infrastructure allows us to not only protect conversations, but to prove the identity of participants in a way that’s scalable, privacy-respecting, and future-ready. Together, we’re building the foundations for a more trusted digital economy, starting in Africa, and scaling worldwide,” said Max Coleman, Co-Founder of VERA.
With this partnership, VERA and cheqd are positioning Africa at the forefront of this transformation, while also laying the foundations for cross-border interoperability with the EU, US, and UK. Looking ahead, this partnership also creates opportunities to introduce cheqd’s decentralised payment infrastructure and collaborate on verifiable AI solutions.
Join the VERA Waitlist: https://www.vera-id.io/waitlist
About Vera
Founded in January 2024, VERA is a secure B2B communication platform designed to eliminate fraud and build trust in digital business interactions. By combining strong encryption with verifiable credentials, VERA enables businesses to verify counterparties instantly and exchange sensitive information with confidence. Currently in beta in South Africa, VERA is planning to scale into the UK, US, and Europe to support secure, trusted communication across global markets.
About cheqd
cheqd is the trust and payment infrastructure to enable the creation of personalised AI, eID, digital credential businesses, and trust ecosystems. It provides privacy-preserving payments for data to incentivise its release from data silos, enabling previously impossible data combinations and unlocking new user experiences and personalised AI.
It provides bespoke network offerings and supports multiple credential formats to underpin identity frameworks such as eIDAS 2.0 in Europe, and beyond. Its industry-leading Trust Registries allow ecosystems to gate and govern themselves, creating permissioned, permeable, or permissionless trusted data ecosystems and trusted verified AI agents.
