Card, mobile credential, payment and security
Modern platforms connect campus services and end reliance on single-vendor ecosystems, says industry exec
For years, campus technology leaders have discussed the coming shift to cloud-based systems, flexible credential options, and non-proprietary hardware and solutions. According to Danny Smith, owner of ColorID, that transformation is no longer theoretical – it’s happening now, and it is fundamentally changing how universities think about identity infrastructure.
“Even before the pandemic, when we were hosting identity summits, we talked about how cloud-based solutions and mobile credentials were going to reshape the industry,” Smith says. “We knew it would happen, but we also knew it would take time.”
Today, many campuses are reaching the point where those predictions are becoming reality.
Over the past several years, IT departments have become far more involved in campus identity ecosystems. As institutions evaluate long-term technology strategies, Smith says many are beginning to move beyond the traditional one-card model that centralized multiple campus services under a single vendor platform.
Identity becomes the foundation, and everything else connects to it.
He describes the emerging approach as independent identity infrastructure, where identity serves as the central layer connecting multiple specialized systems.
Applications that rely on credentials – housing, dining, recreation, visitor management, and access control – can operate independently rather than being tied to a single vendor ecosystem.
Historically, campus one-card systems functioned as the hub for a wide range of services, from dining and vending to building access and campus payments. Vendors built platforms designed to manage these services through centralized infrastructure.
While that model served campuses well for many years, Smith says it also created a level of technological lock-in that many institutions are now trying to avoid.
“Most one-card providers are fundamentally financial platforms – they’re payment processors,” he says. “There’s really no reason for a third-party payment platform to control a university’s entire identity infrastructure.”
In the architecture Smith describes, identity becomes the core and service providers connect to it as needed.
Universities want the freedom to choose the best solution for each service instead of being tied to one ecosystem.
“In a modern architecture, the one-card provider becomes just another consumer of identity,” he says. “Universities can still use those platforms for dining or payments, but they’re no longer locked into them.”
This approach allows institutions to select specialized best-of-breed vendors for specific services, link them to the university-owned identity layer, and replace them, if necessary, with minimal disruption.
According to Smith, this is where ColorID’s CardExchange platform fits in.
“With CardExchange, we provide the identity infrastructure layer that connects everything together,” he explains. “Key to this is that the institution controls it and owns their identity data.”
ColorID has worked in higher education for more than 25 years, helping campuses deploy ID systems and integrate technologies across their environments. He believes that experience positions the company to help institutions transition from legacy card systems to a more modern campus identity infrastructure.
The credential itself isn’t the breakthrough. The breakthrough is how identity connects every system on campus.
One part of that evolution involves mobile credentials. ColorID has certified integrations with Apple Wallet and Google Wallet, enabling them to help campuses issue digital credentials directly to smartphones.
But Smith cautions that mobile credentials alone are not the real transformation.
“Sometimes the industry focuses too much on the fact that the credential sits inside a phone,” he says. “The real value is what you can do with that credential – how it connects to systems and enables new services.”
Mobile credentials, he believes, are simply another form factor. The real innovation lies in the identity ecosystem surrounding them.
Roughly 50 campuses currently use CardExchange as part of their identity infrastructure, and adoption is accelerating as institutions begin evaluating modernization strategies.
“Many universities are still operating within older architectures,” he says. “The longer they wait to modernize, the more complicated and expensive that transition becomes.”
At the same time, the identity technology landscape is becoming more competitive as new vendors enter the higher education market. Smith sees this as a positive development.
“Competition validates the model,” he says. “It pushes all of us to improve our solutions and ultimately gives institutions more options.”
He believes identity is no longer a supporting technology, but rather, the core platform that connects campus systems.
“I think the identity-first architecture will become the standard model in higher ed and across large organizations,” he says. “Identity is the common denominator, and as institutions recognize that, it becomes the foundation that everything else builds around.”
