“Can a legacy card-issuance and PKI vendor become the full-stack identity infrastructure layer for financial institutions and enterprises in the post-quantum era?”
Entrust originated as two separate businesses — Datacard (1969, card issuance hardware) and Entrust Inc. (1994, PKI/identity software) — merged in 2013 and rebranded to Entrust in 2020. The company has evolved from a hardware-centric card personalization vendor into a digital identity, cryptography, and card issuance infrastructure provider. Key inflection points: the 2024 Onfido acquisition transformed Entrust into a major embedded identity verification vendor (now rebranded Entrust Identity Verification / IDV), and the 2025 divestiture of the public CA business to Sectigo focused the company on identity, issuance, and post-quantum cryptography rather than trust services.
Entrust Datacard's cards are issued through Entrust Instant Financial Issuance (self-operated) and Entrust Digital Card Solution (self-operated).
Entrust Datacard uses Entrust Identity Verification (self-operated, formerly Onfido) for KYC and identity verification.
The Embedded Finance Index 2026 maps 2 layers in Entrust Datacard's stack: Card issuing (Entrust Instant Financial Issuance (self-operated) and Entrust Digital Card Solution (self-operated)); KYC (Entrust Identity Verification (self-operated, formerly Onfido)).
Entrust Datacard is founded in 1969 and headquartered in Shakopee, Minnesota, United States.
Entrust Datacard's acquisitions include Onfido (2024), HyTrust (2021), WorldReach Software (2021), nCipher Security (2019) and Entrust Inc. (2013).
Get a read on where your own stack stands against Entrust Datacard and the rest of its category — what they built versus bought, which providers they use, and where the gaps in your own strategy and competitive set actually are.